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+Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15)
+       The Romance of Reality
+
+Author: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [EBook #25625]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL. 8 (OF 15) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE KREMLIN.]
+
+
+
+
+  Édition d'Élite
+
+
+  Historical Tales
+
+  The Romance of Reality
+
+
+  By
+
+  CHARLES MORRIS
+
+  _Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
+  Dramatists," etc._
+
+
+  IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES
+
+  Volume VIII
+
+
+  Russian
+
+
+  J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+  PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1898, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1904, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1908, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+_CONTENTS._
+
+                                                          PAGE
+
+  THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS                                      5
+
+  OLEG THE VARANGIAN                                        14
+
+  THE VENGEANCE OF QUEEN OLGA                               21
+
+  VLADIMIR THE GREAT                                        29
+
+  THE LAWGIVER OF RUSSIA                                    41
+
+  THE YOKE OF THE TARTARS                                   49
+
+  THE VICTORY OF THE DON                                    55
+
+  IVAN, THE FIRST OF THE CZARS                              60
+
+  THE FALL OF NOVGOROD THE GREAT                            64
+
+  IVAN THE TERRIBLE                                         74
+
+  THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA                                   80
+
+  THE MACBETH OF RUSSIA                                     85
+
+  THE ERA OF THE IMPOSTORS                                 101
+
+  THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY                                    110
+
+  BOYHOOD OF PETER THE GREAT                               114
+
+  CARPENTER PETER OF ZAANDAM                               123
+
+  THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ                                 132
+
+  THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS                    142
+
+  MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF                               149
+
+  A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE                                  155
+
+  FROM THE HOVEL TO THE THRONE                             165
+
+  BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT                        174
+
+  HOW A WOMAN DETHRONED A MAN                              184
+
+  A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE                                  195
+
+  THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS                               202
+
+  A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE                           220
+
+  KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND                         226
+
+  SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE                               231
+
+  THE RETREAT OF NAPOLEON'S GRAND ARMY                     241
+
+  THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF POLAND                             248
+
+  SCHAMYL, THE HERO OF CIRCASSIA                           258
+
+  THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE                          267
+
+  THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL                                   276
+
+  AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE                           284
+
+  THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK                             293
+
+  THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA                            300
+
+  THE RAILROAD IN TURKESTAN                                311
+
+  AN ESCAPE FROM THE MINES OF SIBERIA                      319
+
+  THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN                     329
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+  RUSSIAN.
+
+                                                           PAGE
+
+  THE KREMLIN                                    _Frontispiece._
+
+  CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW                       40
+
+  GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW                                    55
+
+  CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT                        78
+
+  KIAKHTA, SIBERIA                                          84
+
+  CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH
+  THE CZAR IS CROWNED                                      109
+
+  ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA                           122
+
+  DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT,
+  MOSCOW                                                   136
+
+  PETER THE GREAT                                          142
+
+  ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER                        156
+
+  SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA                                      160
+
+  A RUSSIAN DROSKY                                         189
+
+  THE CITY OF KASAN                                        199
+
+  SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM                                  223
+
+  RUSSIAN PEASANTS                                         249
+
+  MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA                                  267
+
+  THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE                              290
+
+  THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST                                 297
+
+  DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA                                300
+
+  GROUP OF SIBERIANS                                       320
+
+
+
+
+_THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS._
+
+
+Far over the eastern half of Europe extends a vast and mighty plain,
+spreading thousands of miles to the north and south, to the east and
+west, in the north a land of forests, in the south and east a region of
+treeless levels. Here stretches the Black Land, whose deep dark soil is
+fit for endless harvests; here are the arable steppes, a vast fertile
+prairie land, and here again the barren steppes, fit only for wandering
+herds and the tents of nomad shepherds. Across this great plain, in all
+directions, flow myriads of meandering streams, many of them swelling
+into noble rivers, whose waters find their outlet in great seas. Over it
+blow the biting winds of the Arctic zone, chaining its waters in fetters
+of ice for half the year. On it in summer shine warm suns, in whose
+enlivening rays life flows full again.
+
+Such is the land with which we have to deal, Russia, the seeding-place
+of nations, the home of restless tribes. Here the vast level of Northern
+Asia spreads like a sea over half of Europe, following the lowlands
+between the Urals and the Caspian Sea. Over these broad plains the
+fierce horsemen of the East long found an easy pathway to the rich and
+doomed cities of the West. Russia was playing its part in the grand
+drama of the nations in far-off days when such a land was hardly known
+to exist.
+
+Have any of my readers ever from a hill-top looked out over a broad,
+low-lying meadow-land filled with morning mist, a dense white shroud
+under which everything lay hidden, all life and movement lost to view?
+In such a scene, as the mist thins under the rays of the rising sun,
+vague forms at first dimly appear, magnified and monstrous in their
+outlines, the shadows of a buried wonderland. Then, as the mist slowly
+lifts, like a great white curtain, living and moving objects appear
+below, still of strange outlines and unnatural dimensions. Finally, as
+if by the sweep of an enchanter's wand, the mists vanish, the land lies
+clear under the solar rays, and we perceive that these seeming monsters
+and giants are but the familiar forms which we know so well, those of
+houses and trees, men and their herds, actively stirring beneath us,
+clearly revealed as the things of every day.
+
+It is thus that the land of Russia appears to us when the mists of
+prehistoric time first begin to lift. Half-formed figures appear,
+rising, vanishing, showing large through the vapor; stirring,
+interwoven, endlessly coming and going; a phantasmagoria which it is
+impossible more than half to understand. At that early date the great
+Russian plain seems to have been the home of unnumbered tribes of varied
+race and origin, made up of men doubtless full of hopes and aspirations
+like ourselves, yet whose story we fail to read on the blurred page of
+history, and concerning whom we must rest content with knowing a few of
+the names.
+
+Yet progressive civilizations had long existed in the countries to the
+south, Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Persia. History was actively being
+made there, but it had not penetrated the mist-laden North. The Greeks
+founded colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea, but they
+troubled themselves little about the seething tribes with whom they came
+there into contact. The land they called Scythia, and its people
+Scythians, but the latter were scarcely known until about 500 B.C., when
+Darius, the great Persian king, crossed the Danube and invaded their
+country. He found life there in abundance, and more warlike activity
+than he relished, for the fierce nomads drove him and his army in terror
+from their soil, and only fortune and a bridge of boats saved them from
+perishing.
+
+It was this event that first gave the people of old Russia a place on
+the page of history. Herodotus, the charming old historian and
+story-teller, wrote down for us all he could learn about them, though
+what he says has probably as much fancy in it as fact.
+
+We are told that these broad levels were formerly inhabited by a people
+called the Cimmerians, who were driven out by the Scythians and went--it
+is hard to tell whither. A shadow of their name survives in the Crimea,
+and some believe that they were the ancestors of the Cymri, the Celts of
+the West.
+
+The Scythians, who thus came into history like a cloud of war, made the
+god of war their chief deity. The temples which they built to this deity
+were of the simplest, being great heaps of fagots, which were added to
+every year as they rotted away under the rains. Into the top of the
+heap was thrust an ancient iron sword as the emblem of the god. To this
+grim symbol more victims were sacrificed than to all the other deities;
+not only cattle and horses, but prisoners taken in battle, of whom one
+out of every hundred died to honor the god, their blood being caught in
+vessels and poured on the sword.
+
+A people with a worship like this must have been savage in grain. To
+prove their prowess in war they cut off the heads of the slain and
+carried them to the king. Like the Indians of the West, they scalped
+their enemies. These scalps, softened by treatment, they used as napkins
+at their meals, and even sewed them together to make cloaks. Here was a
+refinement in barbarity undreamed of by the Indians.
+
+These were not their only savage customs. They drank the blood of the
+first enemy killed by them in battle, and at their high feasts used
+drinking-cups made from the skulls of their foes. When a chief died
+cruelty was given free vent. The slaves and horses of the dead chief
+were slain at his grave, and placed upright like a circle of horsemen
+around the royal tomb, being impaled on sharp timbers to keep them in an
+upright position.
+
+Tribes with habits like these have no history. There is nothing in their
+careers worth the telling, and no one to tell it if there were. Their
+origin, manners, and customs may be of interest, but not their
+intertribal quarrels.
+
+Herodotus tells us of others besides the Scythians. There were the
+Melanchlainai, who dressed only in black; the Neuri, who once a year
+changed into wolves; the Agathyrei, who took pleasure in trinkets of
+gold; the Sauromati, children of the Amazons, or women warriors; the
+Argippei, bald-headed and snub-nosed from their birth; the Issedones,
+who feasted on the dead bodies of their parents; the Arimaspians, a
+one-eyed race; the Gryphons, guardians of great hoards of gold; the
+Hyperboreans, in whose land white feathers (snow-flakes?) fell all the
+year round from the skies.
+
+Such is the mixture of fact and fable which Herodotus learned from the
+traders and travellers of Greece. We know nothing of these tribes but
+the names. Their ancestors may have dwelt for thousands of years on the
+Russian plains; their descendants may still make up part of the great
+Russian people and retain some of their old-time habits and customs; but
+of their doings history takes no account.
+
+The Scythians, who occupied the south of Russia, came into contact with
+the Greek trading colonies north of the Black Sea, and gained from them
+some little veneer of civilization. They aided the Greeks in their
+commerce, took part in their caravans to the north and east, and spent
+some portion of the profits of their peaceful labor in objects of art
+made for them by Greek artists.
+
+This we know, for some of these objects still exist. Jewels owned by the
+ancient Scythians may be seen to-day in Russian museums. Chief in
+importance among these relics are two vases of wonderful interest kept
+in the museum of the Hermitage, at St. Petersburg. These are the silver
+vase of Nicopol and the golden vase of Kertch, both probably as old as
+the days of Herodotus. These vases speak with history. On the silver
+vase we may see the faces and forms of the ancient Scythians, men with
+long hair and beards and large features. They resemble in dress and
+aspect the people who now dwell in the same country, and they are shown
+in the act of breaking in and bridling their horses, just as their
+descendants do to-day. Progress has had no place on these broad plains.
+There life stands still.
+
+On the golden vase appear figures who wear pointed caps and dresses
+ornamented in the Asiatic fashion, while in their hands are bows of
+strange shape. But their features are those of men of Aryan descent, and
+in them we seem to see the far-off progenitors of the modern Russians.
+
+Herodotus, in his chatty fashion, tells us various problematical stories
+of the Scythians, premising that he does not believe them all himself. A
+tradition with them was that they were the youngest of all nations,
+being descended from Targitaus, one of the numerous sons of Jove. The
+three children of Targitaus for a time ruled the land, but their joint
+rule was changed by a prodigy. There fell from the skies four implements
+of gold,--a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup. The oldest
+brother hastened eagerly to seize this treasure, but it burst into flame
+at his approach. The second then made the attempt, but was in his turn
+driven back by the scorching flames. But on the approach of the youngest
+the flames vanished, the gold grew cool, and he was enabled to take
+possession of the heaven-given implements. His elders then withdrew from
+the throne, warned by this sign from the gods, and left him sole ruler.
+The story proceeds that the royal gold was guarded with the greatest
+care, yearly sacrifices being made in its honor. If its guardian fell
+asleep in the open air during the sacrifices he was doomed to die within
+the year. But as reward for the faithful keeping of his trust he
+received as much land as he could ride round on horseback in a day.
+
+The old historian further tells us that the Scythian warriors invaded
+the kingdom of Media, which they conquered and held for twenty-eight
+years. During this long absence strange events were taking place at
+home. They had held many slaves, whom it was their custom to blind, as
+they used them only to stir the milk in the great pot in which koumiss,
+their favorite beverage, was made.
+
+The wives of the absent warriors, after years of waiting, gave up all
+hopes of their return and married the blind slaves; and while the
+masters tarried in Media the children of their slaves grew to manhood.
+
+The time at length came when the warriors, filled with home-sickness,
+left the subject realm to seek their native plains. As they marched
+onward they found themselves stopped by a great dike, dug from the
+Tauric Mountains to Lake Mæotis, behind which stood a host of youthful
+warriors. They were the children of the slaves, who were determined to
+keep the land for themselves. Many battles were fought, but the young
+men held their own bravely, and the warriors were in despair.
+
+Then one of them cried to his fellows,--
+
+"What foolish thing are we doing, Scythians? These men are our slaves,
+and every one of them that falls is a loss to us; while each of us that
+falls reduces our number. Take my advice, lay aside spear and bow, and
+let each man take his horsewhip and go boldly up to them. So long as
+they see us with arms in our hands they fancy that they are our equals
+and fight us bravely. But let them see us with only whips, and they will
+remember that they are slaves and flee like dogs from before our faces."
+
+It happened as he said. As the Scythians approached with their whips the
+youths were so astounded that they forgot to fight, and ran away in
+trembling terror. And so the warriors came home, and the slaves were put
+to making koumiss again.
+
+These fabulous stories of the early people of Russia may be followed by
+an account of their funeral customs, left for us by an Arabian writer
+who visited their land in the ninth century. He tells us that for ten
+days after the death of one of their great men his friends bewailed him,
+showing the depth of their grief by getting drunk on koumiss over his
+corpse.
+
+Then the men-servants were asked which of them would be buried with his
+master. The one that consented was instantly seized and strangled. The
+same question was put to the women, one of whom was sure to accept.
+There may have been some rare future reward offered for death in such a
+cause. The willing victim was bathed, adorned, and treated like a
+princess, and did nothing but drink and sing while the obsequies lasted.
+
+On the day fixed for the end of the ceremonies, the dead man was laid in
+a boat, with part of his arms and garments. His favorite horse was slain
+and laid in the boat, and with it the corpse of the man-servant. Then
+the young girl was led up. She took off her jewels, a glass of kvass was
+put in her hand, and she sang a farewell song.
+
+"All at once," says the writer, "the old woman who accompanied her, and
+whom they called the angel of death, bade her to drink quickly, and to
+enter into the cabin of the boat, where lay the dead body of her master.
+At these words she changed color, and as she made some difficulty about
+entering, the old woman seized her by the hair, dragged her in, and
+entered with her. The men immediately began to beat their shields with
+clubs to prevent the other girls from hearing the cries of their
+companion, which might prevent them one day dying for their master."
+
+The boat was then set on fire, and served as a funeral pile, in which
+living and dead alike were consumed.
+
+
+
+
+_OLEG THE VARANGIAN._
+
+
+For ages and ages, none can say how many, the great plain of Russia
+existed as a nursery of tribes, some wandering with their herds, some
+dwelling in villages and tilling their fields, but all warlike and all
+barbarians. And over this plain at intervals swept conquering hordes
+from Asia, the terrible Huns, the devastating Avars, and others of
+varied names. But as yet the Russia we know did not exist, and its very
+name had never been heard.
+
+As time went on, the people in the centre and north of the country
+became peaceful and prosperous, since the invaders did not cross their
+borders, and a great and wealthy city arose, whose commerce in time
+extended on the east as far as Persia and India, on the south to
+Constantinople, and on the west far through the Baltic Sea. Though
+seated in Russia, still largely a land of barbarous tribes, Novgorod
+became one of the powerful cities of the earth, making its strength felt
+far and wide, placing the tribes as far as the Ural Mountains under
+tribute, and growing so strong and warlike that it became a common
+saying among the people, "Who can oppose God and Novgorod the Great?"
+
+But trouble arose for Novgorod. Its chief trade lay through the Baltic
+Sea, and here its ships met those terrible Scandinavian pirates who were
+then the ocean's lords. Among these bold rovers were the Danes who
+descended on England, the Normans who won a new home in France, the
+daring voyagers who discovered Iceland and Greenland, and those who
+sailed up the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, conquering
+kingdoms as they went.
+
+To some of these Scandinavians the merchants of Novgorod turned for aid
+against the others. Bands of them had made their way into Russia and
+settled on the eastern shores of the Baltic. To these the Novgorodians
+appealed in their trouble, and in the year 862 asked three Varangian
+brothers, Rurik, Sinaf, and Truvor, to come to their aid. The warlike
+brothers did so, seated themselves on the frontier of the republic of
+Novgorod, drove off its foes--and became its foes themselves. The people
+of Novgorod, finding their trade at the mercy of their allies, submitted
+to their power, and in 864 invited Rurik to become their king. His two
+brothers had meantime died.
+
+Thus it was that the Russian empire began, for the Varangians came from
+a country called Ross, from which their new realm gained the name of
+Russia.
+
+Rurik took the title of Grand Prince, made his principal followers lords
+of the cities of his new realm, and the republic of Novgorod came to an
+end in form, though not in spirit. It is interesting to note at this
+point that Russia, which began as a republic, has ended as one of the
+most absolute of monarchies. The first step in its subjection was taken
+when Novgorod invited Rurik the Varangian to be its prince; the other
+steps came later, one by one.
+
+For fifteen years Rurik remained lord of Novgorod, and then died and
+left his four-year-old son Igor as his heir, with Oleg, his kinsman, as
+regent of the realm. It is the story of Oleg, as told by Nestor, the
+gossipy old Russian chronicler, that we propose here to tell, but it
+seemed useful to precede it by an account of how the Russian empire came
+into existence.
+
+Oleg was a man of his period, a barbarian and a soldier born; brave,
+crafty, adventurous, faithful to Igor, his ward, cruel and treacherous
+to others. Under his rule the Russian dominions rapidly and widely
+increased.
+
+At an earlier date two Varangians, Askhold and Dir by name, had made
+their way far to the south, where they became masters of the city of
+Kief. They even dared to attack Constantinople, but were driven back
+from that great stronghold of the South.
+
+It by no means pleased Oleg to find this powerful kingdom founded in the
+land which he had set out to subdue. He determined that Kief should be
+his, and in 882 made his way to its vicinity. But it was easier to reach
+than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were
+courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by
+force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem and
+treachery.
+
+Leaving his army, and taking Igor with him, he floated down the Dnieper
+with a few boats, in which a number of armed men were hidden, and at
+length landed near the ancient city of Kief, which stood on high ground
+near the river. Placing his warriors in ambush, he sent a messenger to
+Askhold and Dir, with the statement that a party of Varangian merchants,
+whom the prince of Novgorod had sent to Greece, had just landed, and
+desired to see them as friends and men of their own race.
+
+Those were simple times, in which even the rulers of cities did not put
+on any show of state. On the contrary, the two princes at once left the
+city and went alone to meet the false merchants. They had no sooner
+arrived than Oleg threw off his mask. His followers sprang from their
+ambush, arms in hand.
+
+"You are neither princes nor of princely birth," he cried; "but I am a
+prince, and this is the son of Rurik."
+
+And at a sign from his hand Askhold and Dir were laid dead at his feet.
+
+By this act of base treachery Oleg became the master of Kief. No one in
+the city ventured to resist the strong army which he quickly brought up,
+and the metropolis of the south opened its gates to the man who had
+wrought murder under the guise of war. It is not likely, though, that
+Oleg sought to justify his act on any grounds. In those barbarous days,
+when might made right, murder was too much an every-day matter to be
+deeply considered by any one.
+
+Oleg was filled with admiration of the city he had won. "Let Kief be the
+mother of all the Russian cities!" he exclaimed. And such it became, for
+he made it his capital, and for three centuries it remained the capital
+city of the Russian realm.
+
+What he principally admired it for was its nearness to Constantinople,
+the capital of the great empire of the East, on which, like the former
+lords of Kief, he looked with greedy and envious eyes.
+
+For long centuries past Greece and the other countries of the South had
+paid little heed to the dwellers on the Russian plains, of whose
+scattered tribes they had no fear. But with the coming of the
+Varangians, the conquest of the tribes, and the founding of a
+wide-spread empire, a different state of affairs began, and from that
+day to this Constantinople has found the people of the steppes its most
+dangerous and persistent foes.
+
+Oleg was not long in making the Greek empire feel his heavy hand.
+Filling the minds of his followers and subjects with his own thirst for
+blood and plunder, he set out with an army of eighty thousand men, in
+two thousand barks, passed the cataracts of the Borysthenes, crossed the
+Black Sea, murdered the subjects of the empire in hosts, and, as the
+chronicles say, sailed overland with all sails set to the port of
+Constantinople itself. What he probably did was to have his vessels
+taken over a neck of land on wheels or rollers.
+
+Here he threw the imperial city into mortal terror, fixed his shield on
+the very gate of Constantinople, and forced the emperor to buy him off
+at the price of an enormous ransom. To the treaty made the Varangian
+warriors swore by their gods Perune and Voloss, by their rings, and by
+their swords,--gold and steel, the things they honored most and most
+desired.
+
+Then back in triumph they sailed to Kief, rich with booty, and ever
+after hailing their leader as the Wise Man, or Magician. Eight years
+afterwards Oleg made a treaty of alliance and commerce with
+Constantinople, in which Greeks and Russians stood on equal footing.
+Russia had made a remarkable stride forward as a nation since Rurik was
+invited to Novgorod a quarter-century before.
+
+For thirty-three years Oleg held the throne. His was too strong a hand
+to yield its power to his ward. Igor must wait for Oleg's death. He had
+found a province; he left an empire. In his hands Russia grew into
+greatness, and from Novgorod to Kief and far and wide to the right and
+left stretched the lands won by his conquering sword.
+
+He was too great a man to die an ordinary death. According to the
+tradition, miracle had to do with his passing away. Nestor, the prince
+of Russian chroniclers, tells us the following story:
+
+Oleg had a favorite horse, which he rode alike in battle and in the
+hunt, until at length a prediction came from the soothsayers that death
+would overtake him through his cherished charger. Warrior as he was, he
+had the superstition of the pagan, and to avoid the predicted fate he
+sent his horse far away, and for years avoided even speaking of it.
+
+Then, moved by curiosity, he asked what had become of the banished
+animal.
+
+"It died years ago," was the reply; "only its bones remain."
+
+"So much for your soothsayers," he cried, with a contempt that was not
+unmixed with relief. "That, then, is all this prediction is worth! But
+where are the bones of my good old horse? I should like to see what
+little is left of him."
+
+He was taken to the spot where lay the skeleton of his old favorite, and
+gazed with some show of feeling on the bleaching bones of what had once
+been his famous war-horse. Then, setting his foot on the skull, he
+said,--
+
+"So this is the creature that is destined to be my death."
+
+At that moment a deadly serpent that lay coiled up within the skull
+darted out and fixed its poisonous fangs in the conqueror's foot. And
+thus ignobly he who had slain men by thousands and conquered an empire
+came to his death.
+
+
+
+
+_THE VENGEANCE OF QUEEN OLGA._
+
+
+The death of Oleg brought Igor his ward, then nearly forty years of age,
+to the throne of Rurik his father. And the same old story of bloodshed
+and barbarity went on. In those days a king was king in name only. He
+was really but the chief of a band of plunderers, who dug wealth from
+the world with the sword instead of the spade, threw it away in wild
+orgies, and then hounded him into leading them to new wars.
+
+The story of the Northmen is everywhere the same. While in the West they
+were harrying England, France, and the Mediterranean countries with fire
+and sword, in the East their Varangian kinsmen were spreading
+devastation through Russia and the empire of the Greeks.
+
+Like his predecessor, Igor invaded this empire with a great army,
+landing in Asia Minor and treating the people with such brutal ferocity
+that no earthquake or volcano could have shown itself more merciless.
+His prisoners were slaughtered in the most barbarous manner, fire swept
+away all that havoc had left, and then the Russian prince sailed in
+triumph against Constantinople, with his ten thousand barks manned by
+murderers and laden with plunder.
+
+But the Greeks were now ready for their foes. Pouring on them the
+terrible Greek fire, they drove them back in dismay to Asia Minor, where
+they were met and routed by the land forces of the empire. In the end
+Igor hurried home with hardly a third of his great army.
+
+Three years afterward he again led an army in boats against
+Constantinople, but this time he was bought off by a tribute of gold,
+silver, and precious stuffs, as Oleg had been before him.
+
+Igor was now more than seventy years old, and naturally desired to spend
+the remainder of his days in peace, but his followers would not let him
+rest. The spoils and tribute of the Greeks had quickly disappeared from
+their open hands, and the warlike profligates demanded new plunder.
+
+"We are naked," they bitterly complained, "while the companions of
+Sveneld have beautiful arms and fine clothing. Come with us and levy
+contributions, that we and you may dwell in plenty together."
+
+Igor obeyed--he could not well help himself--and led them against the
+Drevlians, a neighboring nation already under tribute. Marching into
+their country, he forced them to pay still heavier tribute, and allowed
+his soldiers to plunder to their hearts' content.
+
+Then the warriors of Kief marched back, laden with spoils. But the
+wolfish instincts of Igor were aroused. More, he thought, might be
+squeezed out of the Drevlians, but he wanted this extra plunder for
+himself. So he sent his army on to Kief, and went back with a small
+force to the country of the Drevlians, where he held out his hand--with
+the sword in it--for more.
+
+He got more than he bargained for. The Drevlians, driven to extremity,
+came with arms instead of gold, attacked the king and his few followers,
+and killed the whole of them upon the spot. And thus in blood ended the
+career of this white-haired tribute-seeker.
+
+The fallen prince left behind him a widow named Olga and a son named
+Sviatoslaf, who was still a child, as Igor had been at the death of his
+father. So Olga became regent of the kingdom, and Sveneld was made
+leader of the army.
+
+How deeply Olga loved Igor we are not prepared to say, but we are told
+some strange tales of what she did to avenge him. These tales we may
+believe or not, as we please. They are legends only, like those of early
+Rome, but they are all the history we have, and so we repeat the story
+much as old Nestor has told it.
+
+The death of Igor filled the hearts of the Drevlians with hope. Their
+great enemy was gone; the new prince was a child: might they not gain
+power as well as liberty? Their prince Male should marry Olga the widow,
+and all would be well with them.
+
+So twenty of their leading men were sent to Kief, where they presented
+themselves to the queenly regent. Their offer of an alliance was made in
+terms suited to the manners of the times.
+
+"We have killed your husband," they said, "because he plundered and
+devoured like a wolf. But we would be at peace with you and yours. We
+have good princes, under whom our country thrives. Come and marry our
+prince Male and be our queen."
+
+Olga listened like one who weighed the offer deeply.
+
+"After all," she said, "my husband is dead, and I cannot bring him to
+life again. Your proposal seems good to me. Leave me now, and come again
+to-morrow, when I will entertain you before my people as you deserve.
+Return to your barks, and when my people come to you to-morrow, say to
+them, 'We will not go on horseback or on foot; you must carry us in our
+barks.' Thus you will be honored as I desire you to be."
+
+Back went the Drevlians, glad at heart, for the queen had seemed to them
+very gracious indeed. But Olga had a deep and wide pit dug before a
+house outside the city, and next day she went to that house and sent for
+the ambassadors.
+
+"We will not go on foot or on horseback," they said to the messengers;
+"carry us in our barks."
+
+"We are your slaves," answered the men of Kief. "Our ruler is slain, and
+our princess is willing to marry your prince."
+
+So they took up on their shoulders the barks, in which the Drevlians
+proudly sat like kings on their thrones, and carried them to the front
+of the house in which Olga awaited them with smiling lips but ruthless
+heart.
+
+There, at a sign from her hand, the ambassadors and the barks in which
+they sat were flung headlong into the yawning pit.
+
+"How do you like your entertainment?" asked the cruel queen.
+
+"Oh!" they cried, in terror, "pity us! Forgive us the death of Igor!"
+
+But they begged in vain, for at her command the pit was filled up and
+the Drevlians were buried alive.
+
+Then Olga sent messengers to the land of the Drevlians, with this
+message to their prince:
+
+"If you really wish for me, send me men of the highest consideration in
+your country, that my people may be induced to let me go, and that I may
+come to you with honor and dignity."
+
+This message had its effect. The chief men of the country were now sent
+as ambassadors. They entered Kief over the grave of their murdered
+countrymen without knowing where they trod, and came to the palace
+expecting to be hospitably entertained.
+
+Olga had a bath made ready for them, and sent them word,--
+
+"First take a bath, that you may refresh yourselves after the fatigue of
+your journey, then come into my presence."
+
+The bath was heated, and the Drevlians entered it. But, to their dismay,
+smoke soon began to circle round them, and flames flashed on their
+frightened eyes. They ran to the doors, but they were immovable. Olga
+had ordered them to be made fast and the house to be set on fire, and
+the miserable bathers were all burned alive.
+
+But even this terrible revenge was not enough for the implacable widow.
+Those were days when news crept slowly, and the Drevlians did not dream
+of Olga's treachery. Once more she sent them a deceitful message: "I am
+about to repair to you, and beg you to get ready a large quantity of
+hydromel in the place where my husband was killed, that I may weep over
+his tomb and honor him with the trizna [funeral banquet]."
+
+The Drevlians, full of joy at this message, gathered honey in quantities
+and brewed it into hydromel. Then Olga sought the tomb, followed by a
+small guard who were only lightly armed. For a while she wept over the
+tomb. Then she ordered a great mound of honor to be heaped over it. When
+this was done she directed the trizna to be set out.
+
+The Drevlians drank freely, while the men of Kief served them with the
+intoxicating beverage.
+
+"Where are the friends whom we sent to you?" they asked.
+
+"They are coming with the friends of my husband," she replied.
+
+And so the feast went on until the unsuspecting Drevlians were stupid
+with drink. Then Olga bade her guards draw their weapons and slay her
+foes, and a great slaughter began. When it ended, five thousand
+Drevlians lay dead at her feet.
+
+Olga's revenge was far from being complete: her thirst for blood grew as
+it was fed. She returned to Kief, collected her army, took her young son
+with her that he might early learn the art of war, and returned inspired
+by the rage of vengeance to the land of the Drevlians.
+
+Here she laid waste the country and destroyed the towns. In the end she
+came to the capital, Korosten, and laid siege to it. Its name meant
+"wall of bark," so that it was, no doubt, a town of wood, as probably
+all the Russian towns at that time were.
+
+The siege went on, but the inhabitants defended themselves obstinately,
+for they knew now the spirit of the woman with whom they had to contend.
+So a long time passed and Korosten still held out.
+
+Finding that force would not serve, Olga tried stratagem, in which she
+was such an adept.
+
+"Why do you hold out so foolishly?" she said. "You know that all your
+other towns are in my power, and your countrypeople are peacefully
+tilling their fields while you are uselessly dying of hunger. You would
+be wise to yield; you have no more to fear from me; I have taken full
+revenge for my slain husband."
+
+The Drevlians, to conciliate her, offered a tribute of honey and furs.
+This she refused, with a show of generosity, and said that she would ask
+no more from them than a tribute of a pigeon and three sparrows from
+each house.
+
+Gladdened by the lightness of this request, the Drevlians quickly
+gathered the birds asked for, and sent them out to the invading army.
+They did not dream what treachery lay in Olga's cruel heart. That
+evening she let all the birds loose with lighted matches tied to their
+tails. Back to their nests in the town they flew, and soon Korosten was
+in flames in a thousand places.
+
+In terror the inhabitants fled through their gates, but the soldiers of
+the bloodthirsty queen awaited them outside, sword in hand, with orders
+to cut them down without mercy as they appeared. The prince and all the
+leading men of the state perished, and only the lowest of the populace
+were left alive, while the whole land thereafter was laid under a load
+of tribute so heavy that it devastated the country like an invading army
+and caused the people to groan bitterly beneath the burden.
+
+And thus it was that Olga the widow took revenge upon the murderers of
+her fallen lord.
+
+
+
+
+_VLADIMIR THE GREAT._
+
+
+Vladimir, Grand Prince of Russia before and after the year 1000, won the
+name not only of Vladimir the Great but of St. Vladimir, though he was
+as great a reprobate as he was a soldier and monarch, and as
+unregenerate a sinner as ever sat on a throne. But it was he who made
+Russia a Christian country, and in reward the Russian Church still looks
+upon him as "coequal with the Apostles." What he did to deserve this
+high honor we shall see.
+
+Sviatoslaf, the son of Olga, had proved a hardy soldier. He disdained
+the palace and lived in the camp. In his marches he took no tent or
+baggage, but slept in the open air, lived on horse-flesh broiled by
+himself upon the coals, and showed all the endurance of a Cossack
+warrior born in the snows. After years of warfare he fell on the field
+of battle, and his skull, ornamented with a circle of gold, became a
+drinking-cup for the prince of the Petchenegans, by whose hands he had
+been slain. His empire was divided between his three sons, Yaropolk
+reigning in Kief, Oleg becoming prince of the Drevlians, and Vladimir
+taking Rurik's old capital of Novgorod.
+
+These brothers did not long dwell in harmony. War broke out between
+Yaropolk and Oleg, and the latter was killed. Vladimir, fearing that his
+turn would come next, fled to the country of the Varangians, and
+Yaropolk became lord over all Russia. It is the story of the fugitive
+prince, and how he made his way from flight to empire and from empire to
+sainthood, that we are now about to tell.
+
+For two years Vladimir dwelt with his Varangian kinsmen, during which
+time he lived the wild life of a Norseman, joining the bold vikings in
+their raids for booty far and wide over the seas of Europe. Then,
+gathering a large band of Varangian adventurers, he returned to
+Novgorod, drove out the men of Yaropolk, and sent word by them to his
+brother that he would soon call upon him at Kief.
+
+Vladimir quickly proved himself a prince of barbarian instincts. In
+Polotsk ruled Rogvolod, a Varangian prince, whose daughter Rogneda,
+famed for her beauty, was betrothed to Yaropolk. Vladimir demanded her
+hand, but received an insulting reply.
+
+"I will never unboot the son of a slave," said the haughty princess.
+
+It was the custom at that time for brides, on the wedding night, to pull
+off the boots of their husbands; and Vladimir's mother had been one of
+Queen Olga's slave women.
+
+But insults like this, to men like Vladimir, are apt to breed bloodshed.
+Hot with revengeful fury, he marched against Polotsk, killed in battle
+Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced the disdainful princess to accept
+his hand still red with her father's blood.
+
+Then he marched against Kief, where Yaropolk, who seems to have had more
+ambition than courage, shut himself up within the walls. These walls
+were strong, the people were faithful, and Kief might long have defied
+its assailant had not treachery dwelt within. Vladimir had secretly
+bought over a villain named Blude, one of Yaropolk's trusted
+councillors, who filled his master's mind with suspicion of the people
+of Kief and persuaded him to fly for safety. His flight gave Kief into
+his brother's hands.
+
+To Rodnia fled the fugitive prince, where he was closely besieged by
+Vladimir, to whose aid came a famine so fierce that it still gives point
+to a common Russian proverb. Flight or surrender became necessary.
+Yaropolk might have found strong friends among some of the powerful
+native tribes, but the voice of the traitor was still at his ear, and at
+Blude's suggestion he gave himself up to Vladimir. It was like the sheep
+yielding himself to the wolf. By the victor's order Yaropolk was slain
+in his father's palace.
+
+And now the traitor sought his reward. Vladimir felt that it was to
+Blude he owed his empire, and for three days he so loaded him with
+honors and dignities that the false-hearted wretch deemed himself the
+greatest among the Russians.
+
+But the villain had been playing with edge tools. At the end of the
+three days Vladimir called Blude before him.
+
+"I have kept all my promises to you," he said. "I have treated you as my
+friend; your honors exceed your highest wishes; I have made you lord
+among my lords. But now," he continued, and his voice grew terrible,
+"the judge succeeds the benefactor. Traitor and assassin of your
+prince, I condemn you to death."
+
+And at his stern command the startled and trembling traitor was struck
+dead in his presence.
+
+The tide of affairs had strikingly turned. Vladimir, late a fugitive,
+was now lord of all the realm of Russia. His power assured, he showed
+himself in a new aspect. Yaropolk's widow, a Greek nun of great beauty,
+was forced to become his wife. Not content with two, he continued to
+marry until he had no less than six wives, while he filled his palaces
+with the daughters of his subjects until they numbered eight hundred in
+all.
+
+"Thereby hangs a tale," as Shakespeare says. Rogneda, Vladimir's first
+wife, had forgiven him for the murder of her father and brothers, but
+could not forgive him for the insult of turning her out of his palace
+and putting other women in her place. She determined to be revenged.
+
+One day when he had gone to see her in the lonely abode to which she had
+been banished, he fell asleep in her presence. Here was the opportunity
+her heart craved. Seizing a dagger, she was on the point of stabbing him
+where he lay, when Vladimir awoke and stopped the blow. While the
+frightened woman stood trembling before him, he furiously bade her
+prepare for death, as she should die by his own hand.
+
+"Put on your wedding dress," he harshly commanded; "seek your handsomest
+apartment, and stretch yourself on the sumptuous bed you there possess.
+Die you must, but you have been honored as the wife of Vladimir, and
+shall not meet an ignoble death."
+
+Rogneda did as she was bidden, yet hope had not left her heart, and she
+taught her young son Isiaslaf a part which she wished him to play. When
+the frowning prince entered the apartment where lay his condemned wife,
+he was met by the boy, who presented him with a drawn sword, saying,
+"You are not alone, father. Your son will be witness to your deed."
+
+Vladimir's expression changed as he looked at the appealing face of the
+child.
+
+"Who thought of seeing you here?" he cried, and, flinging the sword to
+the floor, he hastily left the room.
+
+Calling his nobles together, he told them what had happened and asked
+their advice.
+
+"Prince," they said, "you should spare the culprit for the sake of the
+child. Our advice is that you make the boy lord of Rogvolod's
+principality."
+
+Vladimir did so, sending Rogneda with her son to rule over her father's
+realm, where he built a new city which he named after the boy.
+
+Vladimir had been born a pagan, and a pagan he was still, worshipping
+the Varangian deities, in particular the god Perune, of whom he had a
+statue erected on a hill near his palace, adorned with a silver head. On
+the same sacred hill were planted the statues of other idols, and
+Vladimir proposed to restore the old human sacrifices by offering one of
+his own people as a victim to the gods.
+
+For this purpose there was selected a young Varangian who, with his
+father, had adopted the Christian faith. The father refused to give up
+his son, and the enraged people, who looked on the refusal as an insult
+to their prince and their gods, broke into the house and murdered both
+father and son. These two have since been canonized by the Russian
+Church as the only martyrs to its faith.
+
+Vladimir by this time had become great in dominion, his warlike prowess
+extending the borders of Russia on all sides. The nations to the south
+saw that a great kingdom had arisen on their northern border, ruled by a
+warlike and conquering prince, and it was deemed wise to seek to win him
+from the worship of idols to a more elevated faith. Askhold and Dir had
+been baptized as Christians. Olga, after her bloody revenge, had gone to
+Constantinople and been baptized by the patriarch. But the nation
+continued pagan, Vladimir was an idolater in grain, and a great field
+lay open for missionary zeal.
+
+No less than four of the peoples of the south sought to make a convert
+of this powerful prince. The Bulgarians endeavored to win him to the
+religion of Mohammed, picturing to him in alluring language the charms
+of their paradise, with its lovely houris. But he must give up wine.
+This was more than he was ready to do.
+
+"Wine is the delight of the Russians," he said: "we cannot do without
+it."
+
+The envoys of the Christian churches and the Jewish faith also sought to
+win him over. The appeal of the Jews, however, failed to impress him,
+and he dismissed them with the remark that they had no country, and
+that he had no inclination to join hands with wanderers under the ban of
+Heaven. There remained the Christians, comprising the Roman and Greek
+Churches, at that time in unison. Of these the Greek Church, the claims
+of which were presented to him by an advocate from Constantinople,
+appealed to him most strongly, since its doctrines had been accepted by
+Queen Olga.
+
+As may be seen, religion with Vladimir was far more a matter of policy
+than of piety. The gods of his fathers, to whom he had done such honor,
+had no abiding place in his heart; and that belief which would be most
+to his advantage was for him the best.
+
+To settle the question he sent ten of his chief boyars, or nobles, to
+the south, that they might examine and report on the religions of the
+different countries. They were not long in coming to a decision.
+Mohammedanism and Catholicism, they said, they had found only in poor
+and barbarous provinces. Judaism had no land to call its own. But the
+Greek faith dwelt in a magnificent metropolis, and its ceremonies were
+full of pomp and solemnity.
+
+"If the Greek religion were not the best," they said, in conclusion,
+"Olga, your ancestress, and the wisest of mortals, would never have
+thought of embracing it."
+
+Pomp and solemnity won the day, and Vladimir determined to follow Olga's
+example. As to what religion meant in itself he seems to have thought
+little and cared less. His method of becoming a Christian was so
+original that it is well worth the telling.
+
+Since the days of Olga Kief had possessed Christian churches and
+priests, and Vladimir might easily have been baptized without leaving
+home. But this was far too simple a process for a prince of his dignity.
+He must be baptized by a bishop of the parent Church, and the
+missionaries who were to convert his people must come from the central
+home of the faith.
+
+Should he ask the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be
+too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The
+haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a
+promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests
+and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the
+new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with the object
+of winning a new religion.
+
+Gathering a large army, Vladimir marched to the Crimea, where stood the
+rich and powerful Greek city of Kherson. The ruins of this city may
+still be seen near the modern Sevastopol. To it he laid siege, warning
+the inhabitants that it would be wise in them to yield, for he was
+prepared to remain three years before their walls.
+
+The Khersonites proved obstinate, and for six months he besieged them
+closely. But no progress was made, and it began to look as if Vladimir
+would never become a Christian in his chosen mode. A traitor within the
+walls, however, solved the difficulty. He shot from the ramparts an
+arrow to which a letter was attached, in which the Russians were told
+that the city obtained all its fresh water from a spring near their
+camp, to which ran underground pipes. Vladimir cut the pipes, and the
+city, in peril of the horrors of thirst, was forced to yield.
+
+Baptism was now to be had from the parent source, but Vladimir was still
+not content. He demanded to be united by ties of blood to the emperors
+of the southern realm, asking for the hand of Anna, the emperor's
+sister, and threatening to take Constantinople if his proposal were
+rejected.
+
+Never before had a convert come with such conditions. The princess Anna
+had no desire for marriage with this haughty barbarian, but reasons of
+state were stronger than questions of taste, and the emperors (there
+were two of them at that time) yielded. Vladimir, having been baptized
+under the name of Basil, married the princess Anna, and the city he had
+taken as a token of his pious zeal was restored to his new kinsmen. All
+that he took back to Russia with him were a Christian wife, some bishops
+and priests, sacred vessels and books, images of saints, and a number of
+consecrated relics.
+
+Vladimir displayed a zeal in his new faith in accordance with the
+trouble he had taken to win it. The old idols he had worshipped were now
+the most despised inmates of his realm. Perune, as the greatest of them
+all, was treated with the greatest indignity. The wooden image of the
+god was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged to the Borysthenes,
+twelve stout soldiers belaboring it with cudgels as it went. The banks
+reached, it was flung with disdain into the river.
+
+At Novgorod the god was treated with like indignity, but did not bear
+it with equal patience. The story goes that, being flung from a bridge
+into the Volkhof, the image of Perune rose to the surface of the water,
+threw a staff upon the bridge, and cried out in a terrifying voice,
+"Citizens, that is what I leave you in remembrance of me."
+
+In consequence of this legend it was long the custom in that city, on
+the day which was kept as the anniversary of the god, for the young
+people to run about with sticks in their hands, striking one another
+unawares.
+
+As for the Russians in general, they discarded their old worship as
+easily as the prince had thrown overboard their idols. One day a
+proclamation was issued at Kief, commanding all the people to repair to
+the river-bank the next day, there to be baptized. They assented without
+a murmur, saying, "If it were not good to be baptized, the prince and
+the boyars would never submit to it."
+
+These were not the only signs of Vladimir's zeal. He built churches, he
+gave alms freely, he set out public repasts in imitation of the
+love-feasts of the early Christians. His piety went so far that he even
+forbore to shed the blood of criminals or of the enemies of his country.
+
+But horror of bloodshed did not lie long on Vladimir's conscience. In
+his later life he had wars in plenty, and the blood of his enemies was
+shed as freely as water. These wars were largely against the
+Petchenegans, the most powerful of his foes. And in connection with them
+there is a story extant which has its parallel in the history of many
+another country.
+
+It seems that in one of their campaigns the two armies came face to face
+on the opposite sides of a small stream. The prince of the Petchenegans
+now proposed to Vladimir to settle their quarrel by single combat and
+thus spare the lives of their people. The side whose champion was
+vanquished should bind itself to a peace lasting for three years.
+
+Vladimir was loath to consent, as he felt sure that his opponents had
+ready a champion of mighty power. He felt forced in honor to accept the
+challenge, but asked for delay that he might select a worthy champion.
+
+Whom to select he knew not. No soldier of superior strength and skill
+presented himself. Uneasiness and agitation filled his mind. But at this
+critical interval an old man, who served in the army with four of his
+sons, came to him, saying that he had at home a fifth son of
+extraordinary strength, whom he would offer as champion.
+
+The young man was sent for in great haste. On his arrival, to test his
+powers, a bull was sent against him which had been goaded into fury with
+hot irons. The young giant stopped the raging brute, knocked him down,
+and tore off great handfuls of his skin and flesh. Hope came to
+Vladimir's soul on witnessing this wonderful feat.
+
+The day arrived. The champions advanced between the camps. The
+Petchenegan warrior laughed in scorn on seeing his beardless antagonist.
+But when they came to blows he found himself seized and crushed as in a
+vice in the arms of his boyish foe, and was flung, a lifeless body, to
+the earth. On seeing this the Petchenegans fled in dismay, while the
+Russians, forgetting their pledge, pursued and slaughtered them without
+mercy.
+
+Vladimir at length (1015 A.D.) came to his end. His son Yaroslaf, whom
+he had made ruler of Novgorod, had refused to pay tribute, and the old
+prince, forced to march against his rebel son, died of grief on the way.
+
+With all his faults, Vladimir deserved the title of Great which his
+country has given him. He put down the turbulent tribes, planted
+colonies in the desert, built towns, and embellished his cities with
+churches, palaces, and other buildings, for which workmen were brought
+from Greece. Russia grew rapidly under his rule. He established schools
+which the sons of the nobles were made to attend. And though he was but
+a poor pattern for a saint, he had the merit of finding Russia pagan and
+leaving it Christian.
+
+[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE LAWGIVER OF RUSSIA._
+
+
+The Russia of the year 1000 lay deep in the age of barbarism. Vladimir
+had made it Christian in name, but it was far from Christian in thought
+or deed. It was a land without fixed laws, without settled government,
+without schools, without civilized customs, but with abundance of
+ignorance, cruelty, and superstition.
+
+It was strangely made up. In the north lay the great commercial city of
+Novgorod, which, though governed by princes of the house of Rurik, was a
+republic in form and in fact. It possessed its popular assembly, of
+which every citizen was a member with full right to vote, and at whose
+meetings the prince was not permitted to appear. The sound of a famous
+bell, the Vetchevoy, called the people together, to decide on questions
+of peace and war, or to elect magistrates, and sometimes the bishop, or
+even the prince. The prince had to swear to carry out the ancient laws
+of the republic and not attempt to lay taxes on the citizens or to
+interfere with their trade. They made him gifts, but paid him no taxes.
+They decided how many hours he should give to pleasure and how many to
+business; and they expelled some of their princes who thought themselves
+beyond the power of the laws.
+
+It seems strange that the absolute Russia of to-day should then have
+possessed one of the freest of the cities of Europe. Novgorod was not
+only a city, it was a state. The provinces far and wide around were
+subject to it, and governed by its prince, who had in them an authority
+much greater than he possessed over the proud civic merchants and money
+lords.
+
+In the south, on the contrary, lay the great imperial city of Kief, the
+capital of the realm, and the seat of a government as arbitrary as that
+of Novgorod was free. Here dwelt the grand prince as an irresponsible
+autocrat, making his will the law, and forcing all the provinces, even
+haughty Novgorod, to pay a tax which bore the slavish title of tribute.
+Here none could vote, no assembly of citizens ever met, and the only
+restraint on the prince was that of his warlike and turbulent nobles,
+who often forced him to yield to their wishes. The government was a
+drifting rather than a settled one. It had no anchors out, but was moved
+about at the whim of the prince and his unruly lords.
+
+Under these two forms of government lay still a third. Rural Russia was
+organized on a democratic principle which still prevails throughout that
+broad land. This is the principle of the Mir, or village community,
+which most of the people of the earth once possessed, but which has
+everywhere passed away except in Russia and India. It is the principle
+of the commune, of public instead of private property. The land of a
+Russian village belongs to the people as a whole, not to individuals. It
+is divided up among them for tillage, but no man can claim the fields
+he tills as his own, and for thousands of years what is known as
+communism has prevailed on Russian soil.
+
+The government of the village is purely democratic. All the people meet
+and vote for their village magistrate, who decides, with the aid of a
+council of the elders, all the questions which arise within its
+confines, one of them being the division of the land. Thus at bottom
+Russia is a field sown thick with little communistic republics, though
+at top it is a despotism. The government of Novgorod doubtless grew out
+of that of the village. The republican city has long since passed away,
+but the seed of democracy remains planted deeply in the village
+community.
+
+All this is preliminary to the story of the Russian lawgiver and his
+laws, which we have set out to tell. This famous person was no other
+than that Yaroslaf, prince of Novgorod, and son of Vladimir the Great,
+whose refusal to pay tribute had caused his father to die of grief.
+
+Yaroslaf was the fifth able ruler of the dynasty of Rurik. The story of
+his young life resembles that of his father. He found his brother strong
+and threatening, and designed to fly from Novgorod and join the
+Varangians as a viking lord, as his father had done before him. But the
+Novgorodians proved his friends, destroyed the ships that were to carry
+him away, and provided him with money to raise a new army. With this he
+defeated his base brother, who had already killed or driven into exile
+all their other brothers. The result was that Yaroslof, like his father,
+became sovereign of all Russia.
+
+But though this new grand prince extended his dominions by the sword,
+it was not as a soldier, but as a legislator, that he won fame. His
+genius was not shown on the field of battle, but in the legislative
+council, and Russia reveres Yaroslaf the Wise as its first maker of
+laws.
+
+The free institutions of Novgorod, of which we have spoken, were by him
+sustained and strengthened. Many new cities were founded under his
+beneficent rule. Schools were widely established, in one of which three
+hundred of the youth of Novgorod were educated. A throng of Greek
+priests were invited into the land, since there were none of Russian
+birth to whom he could confide the duty of teaching the young. He gave
+toleration to the idolaters who still existed, and when the people of
+Suzdal were about to massacre some hapless women whom they accused of
+having brought on a famine by sorcery, he stayed their hands and saved
+the poor victims from death. The Russian Church owed its first national
+foundation to him, for he declared that the bishops of the land should
+no longer depend for appointment on the Patriarch of Constantinople.
+
+There are no startling or dramatic stories to be told about Yaroslaf.
+The heroes of peace are not the men who make the world's dramas. But it
+is pleasant, after a season spent with princes who lived for war and
+revenge, and who even made war to obtain baptism, to rest awhile under
+the green boughs and beside the pleasant waters of a reign that became
+famous for the triumphs of peace.
+
+Under Yaroslaf Russia united itself by ties of blood to Western Europe.
+His sons married Greek, German, and English princesses; his sister
+became queen of Poland; his three daughters were queens of Norway,
+Hungary, and France. Scandinavian in origin, the dynasty of Rurik was
+reaching out hands of brotherhood towards its kinsmen in the West.
+
+But it is as a law-maker that Yaroslaf is chiefly known. Before his time
+the empire had no fixed code of laws. To say that it was without law
+would not be correct. Every people, however ignorant, has its laws of
+custom, unwritten edicts, the birth of the ages, which have grown up
+stage by stage, and which are only slowly outgrown as the tribe develops
+into the nation.
+
+Russia had, besides Novgorod, other commercial cities, with republican
+institutions. Kief was certainly not without law. And the many tribes of
+hunters, shepherds, and farmers must have had their legal customs. But
+with all this there was no code for the empire, no body of written laws.
+The first of these was prepared about 1018 by Yaroslaf, for Novgorod
+alone, but in time became the law of all the land. This early code of
+Russian law is a remarkable one, and goes farther than history at large
+in teaching us the degree of civilization of Russia at that date.
+
+In connection with it the chronicles tell a curious story. In 1018, we
+are told, Novgorod, having grown weary of the insults and oppression of
+its Varangian lords and warriors, killed them all. Angry at this,
+Yaroslaf enticed the leading Novgorodians into his palace and
+slaughtered them in reprisal. But at this critical interval, when his
+guards were slain and his subjects in rebellion, he found himself
+threatened by his ambitious brother. In despair he turned to the
+Novgorodians and begged with tears for pardon and assistance. They
+forgave and aided him, and by their help made him sovereign of the
+empire.
+
+How far this is true it is impossible to say, but the code of Yaroslaf
+was promulgated at that date, and the rights given to Novgorod showed
+that its people held the reins of power. It confirmed the city in the
+ancient liberties of which we have already spoken, giving it a freedom
+which no other city of its time surpassed. And it laid down a series of
+laws for the people at large which seem very curious in this enlightened
+age. It must suffice to give the leading features of this ancient code.
+
+It began by sustaining the right of private vengeance. The law was for
+the weak alone, the strong being left to avenge their own wrongs. The
+punishment of crime was provided for by judicial combats, which the law
+did not even regulate. Every strong man was a law unto himself.
+
+Where no avengers of crime appeared, murder was to be settled by fines.
+For the murder of a boyar eighty grivnas were to be paid, and forty for
+the murder of a free Russian, but only half as much if the victim was a
+woman. Here we have a standard of value for the women of that age.
+
+Nothing was paid into the treasury for the murder of a slave, but his
+master had to be paid his value, unless he had been slain for insulting
+a freeman. His value was reckoned according to his occupation, and
+ranged from twelve to five grivnas.
+
+If it be asked what was the value of a grivna, it may be said that at
+that time there was little coined money, perhaps none at all, in Russia.
+Gold and silver were circulated by weight, and the common currency was
+composed of pieces of skin, called _kuni_. A grivna was a certain number
+of kunis equal in value to half a pound of silver, but the kuni often
+varied in value.
+
+All prisoners of war and all persons bought from foreigners were
+condemned to perpetual slavery. Others became slaves for limited
+periods,--freemen who married slaves, insolvent debtors, servants out of
+employment, and various other classes. As the legal interest of money
+was forty per cent., the enslavement of debtors must have been very
+common, and Russia was even then largely a land of slaves.
+
+The loss of a limb was fined almost as severely as that of a life. To
+pluck out part of the beard cost four times as much as to cut off a
+finger, and insults in general were fined four times as heavily as
+wounds. Horse-stealing was punished by slavery. In discovering the
+guilty the ordeals of red-hot iron and boiling water were in use, as in
+the countries of the West.
+
+There were three classes in the nation,--slaves, freemen, and boyars, or
+nobles, the last being probably the descendants of Rurik's warriors. The
+prince was the heir of all citizens who died without male children,
+except of boyars and the officers of his guard.
+
+These laws, which were little more primitive than those of Western
+Europe at the same period, seem never to have imposed corporal
+punishment for crime. Injury was made good by cash, except in the case
+of the combat. The fines went to the lord or prince, and were one of his
+means of support, the other being tribute from his estates. No provision
+for taxation was made. The mark of dependence on the prince was military
+service, the lord, as in the feudal West, being obliged to provide his
+own arms, provisions, and mounted followers.
+
+Judges there were, who travelled on circuits, and who impanelled twelve
+respectable jurors, sworn to give just verdicts. There are several laws
+extending protection to property, fixed and movable, which seem
+specially framed for the merchants of Novgorod.
+
+Such are the leading features of the code of Yaroslaf. The franchises
+granted the Novgorodians, which for four centuries gave them the right
+to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," form part of it. Crude
+as are many of its provisions, it forms a vital starting-point, that in
+which Russia first came under definite in place of indefinite law. And
+the bringing about of this important change is the glory of Yaroslaf the
+Wise.
+
+
+
+
+_THE YOKE OF THE TARTARS._
+
+
+In Asia, the greatest continent of the earth, lies its most extensive
+plain, the vast plateau of Mongolia, whose true boundaries are the
+mountains of Siberia and the Himalayan highlands, the Pacific Ocean and
+the hills of Eastern Europe, and of which the great plain of Russia is
+but an outlying section. This mighty plateau, largely a desert, is the
+home of the nomad shepherd and warrior, the nesting-place of the
+emigrant invader. From these broad levels in the past horde after horde
+of savage horsemen rode over Europe and Asia,--the frightful Huns, the
+devastating Turks, the desolating Mongols. It is with the last that we
+are here concerned, for Russia fell beneath their arms, and was held for
+two centuries as a captive realm.
+
+The nomads are born warriors. They live on horseback; the care of their
+great herds teaches them military discipline; they are always in motion,
+have no cities to defend, no homes to abandon, no crops to harvest.
+Their home is a camp; when they move it moves with them; their food is
+on the hoof and accompanies them on the march; they can go hungry for a
+week and then eat like cormorants; their tools are weapons, always in
+hand, always ready to use; a dozen times they have burst like a
+devouring torrent from their desert and overwhelmed the South and West.
+
+While the Turks were still engaged in their work of conquest, the
+Mongols arose, and under the formidable Genghis Khan swept over Southern
+Asia like a tornado, leaving death and desolation in their track. The
+conqueror died in 1227,--for death is a foe that vanquishes even the
+greatest of warriors,--and was succeeded by his son Octoi, as Great Khan
+of the Mongols and Tartars. In 1235, Batou, nephew of the khan, was sent
+with an army of half a million men to the conquest of Europe.
+
+This flood of barbarians fell upon Russia at an unfortunate time, one of
+anarchy and civil war, when the whole nation was rent and torn and there
+were almost as many sovereigns as there were cities. The system of
+giving a separate dominion to every son of a grand prince had ruined
+Russia. These small potentates were constantly at war, confusion reigned
+supreme, Kief was taken and degraded and a new capital, Vladimir,
+established, and Moscow, which was to become the fourth capital of
+Russia, was founded. Such was the state of affairs when Batou, with his
+vast horde of savage horsemen, fell on the distracted realm.
+
+Defence was almost hopeless. Russia had no government, no army, no
+imperial organization. Each city stood for itself, with great widths of
+open country around. Over these broad spaces the invaders swept like an
+avalanche, finding cultivated fields before them, leaving a desert
+behind. They swam the Don, the Volga, and the other great rivers on
+their horses, or crossed them on the ice. Leathern boats brought over
+their wagons and artillery. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea,
+poured into the kingdoms of the West, and would have overrun all Europe
+but for the vigorous resistance of the knighthood of Germany.
+
+The cities of Russia made an obstinate defence, but one after another
+they fell. Some saved themselves by surrender. Most of them were taken
+by assault and destroyed. City after city was reduced to ashes, none of
+the inhabitants being left to deplore their fall. The nomads had no use
+for cities. Walls were their enemies: pasturage was all they cared for.
+The conversion of a country into a desert was to them a gain rather than
+a loss, for grass will grow in the desert, and grass to feed their
+horses and herds was what they most desired.
+
+So far as the warriors of Mongolia were concerned, their conquests left
+them no better off. They still had to tend and feed their herds, and
+they could have done that as well in their native land. But the leaders
+had the lust of dominion, their followers the blood-fury, and inspired
+by these feelings they ravaged the world.
+
+One thing alone saved Russia from being peopled by Tartars,--its
+climate. This was not to their liking, and they preferred to dwell in
+lands better suited to their tastes and habits. The great Tartar empire
+of Kaptchak, or the Golden Horde, was founded on the eastern frontier;
+other khanates were founded in the south; but the Russian princes were
+left to rule in the remainder of the land, under tribute to the khans,
+to whom they were forced to do homage. In truth, these Tartar chiefs
+made themselves lords paramount of the Russian realm, and no prince,
+great or small, could assume the government of his state until he had
+journeyed to Central Mongolia to beg permission to rule from the khan of
+the Great Horde.
+
+The subjection of the princes was that of slaves. A century afterward
+they were obliged to spread a carpet of sable fur under the hoofs of the
+steed of the khan's envoy, to prostrate themselves at his feet and learn
+his mission on their knees, and not only to present a cup of koumiss to
+the barbarian, but even to lick from the neck of his horse the drops of
+the beverage which he might let fall in drinking. More shameful
+subjection it would be difficult to describe.
+
+Several princes who proved insubordinate were summoned to the camp of
+the Horde and there tried and executed. Rivals sought the khan, to buy
+power by presents. During their journeys, which occupied a year or more,
+the Tartar bashaks ruled their dominions. Tartar armies aided the
+princes in their civil wars, and helped these ambitious lords to keep
+their country in a state of subjection.
+
+Fortunately for Russia, the great empire of the Mongols gradually fell
+to pieces of its own weight. The Kaptchak, or Golden Horde, broke loose
+from the Great Horde, and Russia had a smaller power to deal with. The
+Golden Horde itself broke into two parts. And among the many princes of
+Russia a grand prince was still acknowledged, with right by title to
+dominion over the entire realm.
+
+One of these grand princes, Alexander by name, son of the grand prince
+of Vladimir, proved a great warrior and statesman and gained the power
+as well as the title. Prince of Novgorod by inheritance, he defeated all
+his enemies, drove the Germans from Russia, and recovered the Neva from
+the Swedes, which feat of arms gained him the title of Alexander Nevsky.
+The Tartars were too powerful to be attacked, so he managed to gain
+their good will. The khan became his friend, and when trouble arose with
+Kief and Vladimir their princes were dethroned and these principalities
+given to the shrewd grand prince.
+
+Russia seemed to be rehabilitated. Alexander was lord of its three
+capitals, Novgorod, Kief, and Vladimir, and grand prince of the realm.
+But the Russians were not content to submit either to his authority or
+to the yoke of the Tartars. His whole life was spent in battle with
+them, or in journeys to the tent of the khan to beg forgiveness for
+their insults.
+
+The climax came when the Tartar collectors of tribute were massacred in
+some cities and ignominiously driven out of others. When these acts
+became known at the Horde the angry khan sent orders for the grand
+prince and all other Russian princes to appear before him and to bring
+all their troops. He said that he was about to make a campaign, and
+needed the aid of the Russians.
+
+This story Alexander did not believe. He plainly perceived that the wily
+Tartar wished to deprive Russia of all its armed men, that he might the
+more easily reduce it again to subjection. Rather than see his country
+ruined, the patriotic prince determined to disobey, and to offer himself
+as a victim by seeking alone the camp of Usbek, the great khan, a
+mission of infinite danger.
+
+He hoped that his submission might save Russia from ruin, though he knew
+that death lay on his path. He found Usbek bitterly bent on war, and for
+a whole year was kept in the camp of the Horde, seeking to appease the
+wrath of the barbarian. In the end he succeeded, the khan promising to
+forgive the Russians and desist from the intended war, and in the year
+1262 Alexander started for home again.
+
+He had seemingly escaped, but not in reality. He had not journeyed far
+before he suddenly died. To all appearance, poison had been mingled with
+his food before he left the camp of the khan. Alexander had become too
+great and powerful at home for the designs of the conquerors. He died
+the victim of his love of country. His people have recognized his virtue
+by making him a saint. He had not labored in vain. In his hands the
+grand princeship had been restored, Vladimir had become supreme, and a
+centre had been established around which the Russians might rally. But
+for a century and more still they were to remain subject to the Tartar
+yoke.
+
+
+
+
+_THE VICTORY OF THE DON._
+
+
+The history of Russia during the century after the Mongol conquest is
+one of shame and anarchy. The shame was that of slavish submission to
+the Tartar khan. Each prince, in succession, fell on his knees before
+this high dignitary of the barbarians and begged or bought his throne.
+The anarchy was that of the Russian princes, on which the khan looked
+with winking eyes, thinking that the more they weakened themselves the
+more they would strengthen him. The rulers of Moscow, Tver, Vladimir,
+and Novgorod fought almost incessantly for supremacy, crushing their
+people beneath the feet of their ambition, now one, now another, gaining
+the upper hand.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW.]
+
+In the end the princes of Moscow became supreme. They grew rich, and
+were able to keep up a regular army, that chief tool of despotism. The
+crown lands alone gave them dominion over three hundred thousand
+subjects. The time was coming in which they would be the absolute rulers
+of all Russia. But before this could be accomplished the power of the
+khans must be broken, and the first step towards this was taken by the
+great Dmitri Donskoi, who became grand prince of Moscow in 1362.
+
+Dmitri came to the throne at a fortunate epoch. The Golden Horde was
+breaking to pieces. There were several khans, at war with one another,
+and discord ruled among the overlords of Russia. Still greater discord
+reigned in Russia itself. For eighteen years Dmitri was kept busy in
+wars with the princes of Tver, Kief, and Lithuania. Terrible was the war
+with Tver. Four times he overcame Michael, its prince. Four times did
+Michael, aided by the prince of Lithuania, gain the victory. During this
+obstinate conflict Moscow was twice besieged. Only its stone walls,
+lately built, saved it from capture and ruin. At length Olguerd, the
+fiery prince of Lithuania, died, and Tver yielded. Moscow became
+paramount among the Russian principalities.
+
+And now Dmitri, with all Russia as his realm, dared to defy the terrible
+Tartars. For more than a century no Russian prince had ventured to
+appear before the khan of the Golden Horde except on his knees. Dmitri
+had thus humbled himself only three years before. Now, inflated with his
+new power, he refused to pay tribute to the khan, and went so far as to
+put to death the Tartar envoy, who insolently demanded the accustomed
+payment.
+
+Dmitri had burned his bridges behind him. He had flung down the gage of
+war to the Tartars, and would soon feel their hand in all its dreaded
+strength. The khan, on hearing of the murder of his ambassador, burst
+into a terrible rage. The civil wars which divided the Golden Horde had
+for the time ceased, and Mamai, the khan, gathered all the power of the
+Horde and marched on defiant Moscow, vowing to sweep that rebel city
+from the face of the earth.
+
+The Russians did not wait his coming. All dissensions ceased in the
+face of the impending peril, all the princes sent aid, and Dmitri
+marched to the Don at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men.
+Here he found the redoubtable Mamai with three times that number of the
+fierce Tartar horsemen in his train.
+
+"Yonder lies the foe," said Dmitri to his princely associates. "Here
+runs the Don. Shall we await him here, or cross and meet him with the
+river at our backs?"
+
+"Let us cross," was the unanimous verdict. "Let us be first in the
+assault."
+
+At once the order was given, and the battalions marched on board the
+boats and were ferried across the stream, at a short distance from the
+opposite bank of which the enemy lay. No sooner had they landed than
+Dmitri ordered all the boats to be cast adrift. It was to be victory or
+death; no hope of escape by flight was left; but well he knew that the
+men would fight with double valor under such desperate straits.
+
+The battle began. On the serried Russian ranks the Tartars poured in
+that impetuous assault which had so often carried their hosts to
+victory. The Russians defended themselves with fiery valor, assault
+after assault was repulsed, and so fiercely was the field contested that
+multitudes of the fallen were trampled to death beneath the horses'
+feet. At length, however, numbers began to tell. The Russians grew weary
+from the closeness of the conflict. The vast host of the Tartars enabled
+them to replace with fresh troops all that were worn in the fight.
+Victory seemed about to perch upon their banners.
+
+Dismay crept into the Russian ranks. They would have broken in flight,
+but no avenue of escape was left. The river ran behind them, unruffled
+by a boat. Flight meant death by drowning; fight meant death by the
+sword. Of the two the latter seemed best, for the Russians firmly
+believed that death at the hands of the infidels meant an immediate
+transport to the heavenly mansions of bliss.
+
+At this critical moment, when the host of Dmitri was wavering between
+panic and courage, the men ready to drop their swords through sheer
+fatigue, an unlooked-for diversion inspired their shrinking souls. The
+grand prince had stationed a detachment of his army as a reserve, and
+these, as yet, had taken no part in the battle. Now, fresh and furious,
+they were brought up, and fell vigorously upon the rear of the Tartars,
+who, filled with sudden terror, thought that a new army had come to the
+aid of the old. A moment later they broke and fled, pursued by their
+triumphant foes, and falling fast as they hurried in panic fear from the
+encrimsoned field.
+
+Something like amazement filled the souls of the Russians as they saw
+their dreaded enemies in flight. Such a consummation they had scarcely
+dared hope for, accustomed as they had been for a century to crouch
+before this dreadful foe. They had bought their victory dearly. Their
+dead strewed the ground by thousands. Yet to be victorious over the
+Tartar host seemed to them an ample recompense for an even greater loss
+than that sustained. Eight days were occupied by the survivors in
+burying the slain. As for the Tartar dead, they were left to fester on
+the field. Such was the great victory of the Don, from which Dmitri
+gained his honorable surname of Donskoi. He died nine years afterwards
+(1389), having won the high honor of being the first to vanquish the
+terrible horsemen of the Steppes, firmly founded the authority of the
+grand princes, and made Moscow the paramount power in Russia.
+
+
+
+
+_IVAN, THE FIRST OF THE CZARS._
+
+
+The victory of the Don did not free Russia from the Tartar yoke. Two
+years afterwards the principality of Moscow was overrun and ravaged by a
+lieutenant of the mighty Tamerlane, the all-conquering successor of
+Genghis Khan. Several times Moscow was taken and burned. Full seventy
+years later, at the court of the Golden Horde, two Russian princes might
+have been seen disputing before the great khan the possession of the
+grand principality and tremblingly awaiting his decision. Nevertheless,
+the battle of the Don had sounded the knell of the Tartar power. Anarchy
+continued to prevail in the Golden Horde. The power of the grand princes
+of Moscow steadily grew. The khans themselves played into the hands of
+their foes. Russia was slowly but surely casting off her fetters, and
+deliverance was at hand.
+
+Ivan III., great-grandson of Dmitri Donskoi, ascended the throne in
+1462, nearly two centuries and a half after the Tartar invasion. During
+all that period Russia had been the vassal of the khans. Only now was
+its freedom to come. It was by craft, more than by war, that Ivan won.
+In the field he was a dastard, but in subtlety and perfidy he surpassed
+all other men of his time, and his insidious but persistent policy
+ended by making him the autocrat of all the Russias.
+
+He found powerful enemies outside his dominions,--the Tartars, the
+Lithuanians, and the Poles. He succeeded in defeating them all. He had
+powerful rivals within the domain of Russia. These also he overcame. He
+made Moscow all-powerful, imitated the tyranny of the Tartars, and
+founded the autocratic rule of the czars which has ever since prevailed.
+
+The story of the fall of the Golden Horde may be briefly told. It was
+the work of the Russian army, but not of the Russian prince. In 1469,
+after collecting a large army, Ivan halted and began negotiating. But
+the army was not to be restrained. Disregarding the orders of their
+general, they chose another leader, and assailed and captured Kasan, the
+chief Tartar city. As for the army of the Golden Horde, it was twice
+defeated by the Russian force. In 1480 a third invasion of the Tartars
+took place, which resulted in the annihilation of their force.
+
+The tale, as handed down to us, is a curious one. The army, full of
+martial ardor, had advanced as far as the Oka to meet the Tartars; but
+on the approach of the enemy Ivan, stricken with terror, deserted his
+troops and took refuge in far-off Moscow. He even recalled his son, but
+the brave boy refused to obey, saying that "he would rather die at his
+post than follow the example of his father."
+
+The murmurs of the people, the supplication of the priests, the
+indignation of the boyars, forced him to return to the army, but he
+returned only to cover it with shame and himself with disgrace. For
+when the chill of the coming winter suddenly froze the river between the
+two forces, offering the foe a firm pathway to battle, Ivan, in
+consternation, ordered a retreat, which his haste converted into a
+disorderly flight. Yet the army was two hundred thousand strong and had
+not struck a blow.
+
+Fortune and his allies saved the dastard monarch. For at this perilous
+interval the khan of the Crimea, an ally of Russia, attacked the capital
+of the Golden Horde and forced a hasty recall of its army; and during
+its disorderly homeward march a host of Cossacks fell upon it with such
+fury that it was totally destroyed. Russia, threatened with a new
+subjection to the Tartars by the cowardice of its monarch, was finally
+freed from these dreaded foes through the aid of her allies.
+
+But the fruits of this harvest, sown by others, were reaped by the czar.
+His people, who had been disgusted with his cowardice, now gave him
+credit for the deepest craft and wisdom. All this had been prepared by
+him, they said. His flight was a ruse, his pusillanimity was prudence;
+he had made the Tartars their own destroyers, without risking the fate
+of Russia in a battle; and what had just been condemned as dastard
+baseness was now praised as undiluted wisdom.
+
+Ivan would never have gained the title of Great from his deeds in war.
+He won it, and with some justice, from his deeds in peace. He was great
+in diplomacy, great in duplicity, great in that persistent pursuit of a
+single object through which men rise to power and fame. This object, in
+his case, was autocracy. It was his purpose to crush out the last shreds
+of freedom from Russia, establish an empire on the pernicious pattern of
+a Tartar khanate, which had so long been held up as an example before
+Russian eyes, and make the Prince of Moscow as absolute as the Emperor
+of China. He succeeded. During his reign freedom fled from Russia. It
+has never since returned.
+
+The story of how this great aim was accomplished is too long to be told
+here, and the most important part of it must be left for our next tale.
+It will suffice, at this point, to say that by astute policy and good
+fortune Ivan added to his dominions nineteen thousand square miles of
+territory and four millions of subjects, made himself supreme autocrat
+and his voice the sole arbiter of fate, reduced the boyars and
+subordinate princes to dependence on his throne, established a new and
+improved system of administration in all the details of government, and
+by his marriage with Sophia, the last princess of the Greek imperial
+family,--driven by the Turks from Constantinople to Rome,--gained for
+his standard the two-headed eagle, the symbol of autocracy, and for
+himself the supreme title of czar.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FALL OF NOVGOROD THE GREAT._
+
+
+The Czar of Russia is the one political deity in Europe, the sole
+absolute autocrat. More than a hundred millions of people have delivered
+themselves over, fettered hand and foot, almost body and soul, to the
+ownership of one man, without a voice in their own government, without
+daring to speak, hardly daring to think, otherwise than he approves.
+Thousands of them, millions of them, perhaps, are saying to-day, in the
+words of Hamlet, "It is not and it cannot come to good; but break my
+heart, for I must hold my tongue."
+
+Who is this man, this god of a nation, that he should loom so high? Is
+he a marvel of wisdom, virtue, and nobility, made by nature to wear the
+purple, fashioned of porcelain clay, greater and better than all the
+host to whom his word is the voice of fate? By no means; thousands of
+his subjects tower far above him in virtue and ability, but,
+puppet-like, the noblest and best of them must dance as he pulls the
+strings, and hardly a man in Russia dares to say that his soul is his
+own if the czar says otherwise.
+
+Such a state of affairs is an anachronism in the nineteenth century, a
+hideous relic of the barbarism and anarchy of mediæval times. In
+America, where every man is a czar, so far as the disposal of himself
+is concerned, the enslavement of the Russians seems a frightful
+disregard of the rights of man, the nation a giant Gulliver bound down
+to the earth by chains of creed and custom, of bureaucracy and perverted
+public opinion. Like Gulliver, it was bound when asleep, and it must
+continue fettered while its intellect remains torpid. Some day it will
+awake, stretch its mighty limbs, burst its feeble bonds, and hurl in
+disarray to the earth the whole host of liliputian officials and
+dignitaries who are strutting in the pride of ownership on its great
+body, the czar tumbling first from his great estate.
+
+This does not seem a proper beginning to a story from Russian history,
+but, to quote from Shakespeare again, "Thereby hangs a tale." The
+history of Russia has, in fact, been a strange one; it began as a
+republic, it has ended as a despotism; and we cannot go on with our work
+without attempting to show how this came about.
+
+It was the Mongol invasion that enslaved Russia. Helped by the khans,
+Moscow gradually rose to supremacy over all the other principalities,
+trod them one by one under her feet, gained power by the aid of Tartar
+swords and spears or through sheer dread of the Tartar name, and when
+the Golden Horde was at length overthrown the Grand Prince took the
+place of the Great Khan and ruled with the same absolute sway. It was
+the absolutism of Asia imported into Europe. Step by step the princes of
+Moscow had copied the system of the khan. This work was finished by Ivan
+the Great, at once the deliverer and the enslaver of Russia, who freed
+that country from the yoke of the khan, but laid upon it a heavier
+burden of servility and shame.
+
+Under the khan there had been insurrection. Under the czar there was
+subjection. The latter state was worse than the former. The subjection
+continues still, but the spirit of insurrection is again rising. The
+time is coming in which the rule of that successor of the Tartar khan,
+miscalled the czar, will end, and the people take into their own hands
+the control of their bodies and souls.
+
+There were republics in Russia even in Ivan's day, free cities which,
+though governed by princes, maintained the republican institutions of
+the past. Chief among these was Novgorod, that Novgorod the Great which
+invited Rurik into Russia and under him became the germ of the vast
+Russian empire. A free city then, a free city it continued. Rurik and
+his descendants ruled by sufferance. Yaroslaf confirmed the free
+institutions which Rurik had respected. For centuries this great
+commercial city continued prosperous and free, becoming in time a member
+of the powerful Hanseatic League. Only for the invasion of the Mongols,
+Novgorod instead of Moscow might have become the prototype of modern
+Russia, and a republic instead of a despotism have been established in
+that mighty land. The sword of the Tartar cast into the scales
+overweighted the balance. It gave Moscow the supremacy, and liberty
+fell.
+
+Ivan the Great, in his determined effort to subject all Russia to his
+autocratic sway, saw before him three republican communities, the free
+cities of Novgorod, Viatka, and Pskof, and took steps to sweep these
+last remnants of ancient freedom from his path. Novgorod, as much the
+most important of these, especially demands our attention. With its fall
+Russian liberty fell to the earth.
+
+At that time Novgorod was one of the richest and most powerful cities of
+the earth. It was an ally rather than a subject of Moscow, and all the
+north of Russia was under its sway and contributed to its wealth. But
+luxury had sapped its strength, and it held its liberties more by
+purchase than by courage. Some of these liberties had already been lost,
+seized by the grand prince. The proud burghers chafed under this
+invasion of their time-honored privileges, and in 1471, inspired by the
+seeming timidity of Ivan, they determined to regain them.
+
+It was a woman that brought about the revolt. Marfa, a rich and
+influential widow of the city, had fallen in love with a Lithuanian,
+and, inspired at once by the passions of love and ambition, sought to
+attach her country to that of her lover. She opened her palace to the
+citizens and lavished on them her treasures, seeking to inspire them
+with her own views. Her efforts were successful: the officers of the
+grand prince were driven out, and his domains seized; and when he
+threatened reprisal they broke into open revolt, and bound themselves by
+treaty to Casimir, prince of Lithuania.
+
+But events were to prove that the turbulent citizens were no match for
+the crafty Ivan, who moved slowly but ever steadily to his goal, and
+made secure each footstep before taking a step in advance. His
+insidious policy roused three separate hostilities against Novgorod. The
+pride of the nobles was stirred up against its democracy; the greed of
+the princes made them eager to seize its wealth; the fanatical people
+were taught that this great city was an apostate to the faith.
+
+These hostile forces proved too much for the city against which they
+were directed. Novgorod was taken and plundered, though Ivan did not yet
+deprive it of its liberties. He had powerful princes to deal with, and
+did not dare to seize so rich a prey without letting them share the
+spoil. But he ruined the city by devastation and plunder, deprived it of
+its tributaries, the city and territory of Perm, and turned from
+Novgorod to Moscow the rich commerce of this section. Taking advantage
+of some doubtful words in the treaty of submission, he held himself to
+be legislator and supreme judge of the captive city. Such was the first
+result of the advice of an ambitious woman.
+
+The next step of the autocrat added to his influence. Novgorod being
+threatened with an attack from Livonia, he sent thither troops and
+envoys to fight and negotiate in his name, thus taking from the city,
+whose resources he had already drained, its old right of making peace
+and war.
+
+The ill feeling between the rich and the poor of Novgorod was fomented
+by his agents; all complaints were required to be made to him; he still
+further impoverished the rich by the presents and magnificent receptions
+which his presence among them demanded, and dazzled the eyes of the
+people by the Oriental state and splendor which had been adopted by the
+court of Moscow, and which he displayed in their midst.
+
+The nobles who had formerly been his enemies now became his victims. He
+had induced the people to denounce them, and at once seized them and
+sent them in chains to Moscow. The people, blinded by this seeming
+attention to their complaints, remained heedless of the violation of the
+ancient law of their republic, "that none of its citizens should ever be
+tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory."
+
+Thus tyranny made its slow way. The citizens, once governed and judged
+by their own peers, now made their appeals to the grand prince and were
+summoned to appear before his tribunal. "Never since Rurik," say the
+annals, "had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of Kief
+and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come and submit to them as their
+judges. Ivan alone could reduce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation."
+
+This work was done with the deliberation of a settled policy. Ivan did
+not molest Marfa, who had instigated the revolt; his sentences were just
+and equitable; men were blinded by his seeming moderation; and for full
+seven years he pursued his insidious way, gradually weaning the people
+from their ancient customs, and taking advantage of every imprudence and
+thoughtless concession on their part to ground on it a claim to
+increased authority.
+
+It was the glove of silk he had thus far extended to them. Within it lay
+concealed the hand of iron. The grasp of the iron hand was made when,
+during an audience, the envoy of the republic, through treason or
+thoughtlessness, addressed him by the name of sovereign (_Gosudar_,
+"liege lord," instead of _Gospodin_, "master," the usual title).
+
+Ivan, taking advantage of this, at once claimed all the absolute rights
+which custom had attached to that title. He demanded that the republic
+should take an oath to him as its judge and legislator, receive his
+boyars as their rulers, and yield to them the ancient palace of
+Yaroslaf, the sacred temple of their liberties, in which for more than
+five centuries their assemblies had been held.
+
+This demand roused the Novgorodians to their danger. They saw how
+blindly they had yielded to tyranny. A transport of indignation inspired
+them. For the last time the great bell of liberty sent forth its peal of
+alarm. Gathering tumultuously at the palace from which they were
+threatened with expulsion, they vigorously resolved,--
+
+"Ivan is in fact our lord, but he shall never be our sovereign; the
+tribunal of his deputies may sit at Goroditch, but never at Novgorod:
+Novgorod is, and always shall be, its own judge."
+
+In their rage they murdered several of the nobles whom they suspected of
+being friends of the tyrant. The envoy who had uttered the imprudent
+word was torn to pieces by their furious hands. They ended by again
+invoking the aid of Lithuania.
+
+On hearing of this outbreak the despot feigned surprise. Groans broke
+from his lips, as if he felt that he had been basely used. His
+complaints were loud, and the calling in of a foreign power was brought
+against Novgorod as a frightful aggravation of its crime. Under cover of
+these groans and complaints an army was gathered to which all the
+provinces of the empire were forced to send contingents.
+
+These warlike preparations alarmed the citizens. All Russia seemed
+arrayed against them, and they tremblingly asked for conditions of peace
+in accordance with their ancient honor. "I will reign at Novgorod as I
+do at Moscow," replied the imperious despot. "I must have domains on
+your territory. You must give up your Posadnick, and the bell which
+summons you to the national council." Yet this threat of enslavement was
+craftily coupled with a promise to respect their liberty.
+
+This declaration, the most terrible that free citizens could have heard,
+threw them into a state of violent agitation. Now in defiant fury they
+seized their arms, now in helpless despondency let them fall. For a
+whole month their crafty adversary permitted them to exhibit their rage,
+not caring to use the great army with which he had encircled the city
+when assured that the terror of his presence would soon bring him
+victory.
+
+They yielded: they could do nothing but yield. No blood was shed. Ivan
+had gained his end, and was not given to useless cruelty. Marfa and
+seven of the principal citizens were sent prisoners to Moscow and their
+property was confiscated. No others were molested. But on the 15th of
+January, 1478, the national assemblies ceased, and the citizens took the
+oath of subjection. The great republic, which had existed from
+prehistoric times, was at an end, and despotism ruled supreme.
+
+On the 18th the boyars of Novgorod entered the service of Ivan, and the
+possessions of the clergy were added to the domain of the prince, giving
+him as vassals three hundred thousand boyar-followers, on whom he
+depended to hold Novgorod in a state of submission. A great part of the
+territories belonging to the city became the victor's prize, and it is
+said that, as a share of his spoil, he sent to Moscow three hundred
+cart-loads of gold, silver, and precious stones, besides vast quantities
+of furs, cloths, and other goods of value.
+
+Pskov, another of the Russian republics, had been already subdued. In
+1479, Viatka, a colony of Novgorod, was reduced to like slavery. The end
+had come. Republicanism in Russia was extinguished, and gradually the
+republican population was removed to the soil of Moscow and replaced by
+Muscovites, born to the yoke.
+
+The liberties of Novgorod were gone. It had been robbed of its wealth.
+Its commerce remained, which in time would have restored its prosperity.
+But this too Ivan destroyed, not intentionally, but effectually. A burst
+of despotic anger completed the work of ruin. The tyrant, having been
+insulted by a Hanseatic city, ordered all the merchants of the Hansa
+then in Novgorod to be put in chains and their property confiscated. As
+a result, that confidence under which alone commerce can flourish
+vanished, the North sought new channels for its trade, and Novgorod the
+Great, once peopled by four hundred thousand souls, declined until only
+an insignificant borough marks the spot where once it stood.
+
+It is an interesting fact that this final blow to Russian republicanism
+was dealt in 1492, the very year in which Columbus discovered a new
+world beyond the seas, within which the greatest republic the world has
+ever known was destined to arise.
+
+
+
+
+_IVAN THE TERRIBLE._
+
+
+In seeking examples of the excesses to which absolute power may lead, we
+usually name the wicked emperors of Rome, among whom Nero stands most
+notorious as a monster of cruelty. Modern history has but one Nero in
+its long lines of kings and emperors, and him we find in Ivan IV. of
+Russia, surnamed the Terrible.
+
+This cruel czar succeeded to the throne when but three years of age. In
+his early years he lived in a state of terror, being insulted and
+despised by the powerful nobles who controlled the power of the throne.
+At fourteen years of age his enemies were driven out and his kinsmen
+came into power. They, caring only for blood and plunder, prompted the
+boy to cruelty, teaching him to rob, to torture, to massacre. They
+applauded him when he amused himself by tormenting animals; and when,
+riding furiously through the streets of Moscow, he dashed all before him
+to the ground and trampled women and children under his horses' feet,
+they praised him for spirit and energy.
+
+This was an education fitted to make a Nero. But, happily for Russia,
+for thirteen years the tiger was chained. Ivan was seventeen years of
+age when a frightful conflagration which broke out in Moscow gave rise
+to a revolt against the Glinski, his wicked kinsmen. They were torn to
+pieces by the furious multitude, while terror rent his youthful soul.
+Amid the horror of flames, cries of vengeance, and groans of the dying,
+a monk appeared before the trembling boy, and with menacing looks and
+upraised hand bade him shrink from the wrath of Heaven, which his
+cruelty had aroused.
+
+Certain appearances which appeared supernatural aided the effect of
+these words, the nature of Ivan seemed changed as by a miracle, dread of
+Heaven's vengeance controlled his nature, and he yielded himself to the
+influence of the wise and good. Pious priests and prudent boyars became
+his advisers, Anastasia, his young and virtuous bride, gained an
+influence over him, and Russia enjoyed justice and felicity.
+
+During the succeeding thirteen years the country was ably and wisely
+governed, order was everywhere established, the army was strengthened,
+fortresses were built, enemies were defeated, the morals of the clergy
+were improved, a new code of laws was formed, arts were introduced from
+Europe, a printing-office was opened, the city of Archangel was built,
+and the north of the empire was thrown open to commerce.
+
+All this was the work of Adashef, Ivan's wise prime minister, aided by
+the influence of the noble-hearted Anastasia. In 1560, at the end of
+this period of mild and able administration, a sudden change took place
+and the tiger was set free. Anastasia died. A disease seized Ivan which
+seemed to affect his brain. The remainder of his life was marked by
+paroxysms of frightful barbarity.
+
+A new terror seized him, that of a vast conspiracy of the nobles
+against his power, and for safety he retired to Alexandrovsky, a
+fortress in the midst of a gloomy forest. Here he assumed the monkish
+dress with three hundred of his minions, abandoning to the boyars the
+government of the empire, but keeping the military power in his own
+hands.
+
+On all sides Russia now suffered from its enemies. Moscow, with several
+hundred thousand Muscovites, was burned by the Tartars in 1571. Disaster
+followed disaster, which Ivan was too cowardly and weak to avert.
+Trusting to incompetent generals abroad, he surrounded himself at home
+with a guard of six thousand chosen men, who were hired to play the part
+of spies and assassins. They carried as emblems of office a dog's head
+and a broom, the first to indicate that they worried the enemies of the
+czar, the second that they swept them from the face of the earth. They
+were chosen from the lowest class of the people, and to them was given
+the property of their victims, that they might murder without mercy.
+
+The excesses of Ivan are almost too horrible to tell. He began by
+putting to death several great boyars of the family of Rurik, while
+their wives and children were driven naked into the forests, where they
+died under the scourge. Novgorod had been ruined by his grandfather. He
+marched against it, in a freak of madness, gathered a throng of the
+helpless people within a great enclosure, and butchered them with his
+own hand. When worn out with these labors of death, he turned on them
+his guard, his slaves, and his dogs, while for a month afterwards
+hundreds of them were flung daily into the waters of the river, through
+the broken ice. What little vitality Ivan III. had left in the
+republican city was stamped out under the feet of this insensate brute.
+
+Tver and Pskov, two others of the free cities of the empire, suffered
+from his frightful presence. Then returning to Moscow, he filled the
+public square with red-hot brasiers, great brass caldrons, and eighty
+gibbets, and here five hundred of the leading nobles were slain by his
+orders, after being subjected to terrible tortures.
+
+Women were treated as barbarously as men. Ivan, with a cruelty never
+before matched, ordered many of them to be hanged at their own doors,
+and forced the husbands to go in and out under the swinging and
+festering corpses of those they had loved and cherished. In other cases
+husbands or children were fastened, dead, in their seats at table, and
+the family forced to sit at meals, for days, opposite these terrifying
+objects.
+
+Seeking daily for new conceits of cruelty, he forced one lord to kill
+his father and another his brother, while it was his delight to let
+loose his dogs and bears upon the people in the public square, the
+animals being left to devour the mutilated bodies of those they killed.
+Eight hundred women were drowned in one frightful mass, and their
+relatives were forced under torture to point out where their wealth lay
+hidden.
+
+It is said that sixty thousand people were slain by Ivan's orders in
+Novgorod alone; how many perished in the whole realm history does not
+relate. His only warlike campaign was against the Livonians. These he
+failed to conquer, but held their resistance as a rebellion, and ordered
+his prisoners to be thrown into boiling caldrons, spitted on lances, or
+roasted at fires which he stirred up with his own hands.
+
+This monster of iniquity married in all seven wives. He sought for an
+eighth from the court of Queen Elizabeth of England, and the daughter of
+the Earl of Huntington was offered him as a victim,--a willing one, it
+seems, influenced by the glamour which power exerts over the mind; but
+before the match was concluded the intended bride took fright, and
+begged to be spared the terrible honor of wedding the Russian czar.
+
+Yet all the excesses of Ivan did not turn the people against him. He
+assumed the manner of one inspired, claiming divine powers, and all the
+injuries and degradation which he inflicted upon the people were
+accepted not only with resignation but with adoration. The Russians of
+that age of ignorance seem to have looked upon God and the czar as one,
+and submitted to blows, wounds, and insults with a blind servility to
+which only abject superstition could have led.
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT.]
+
+The end came at last, in a final freak of madness. An humble
+supplication, coming from the most faithful of his subjects, was made to
+him; but in his distorted brain it indicated a new conspiracy of the
+boyars, of which his eldest and ablest son was to be the leader. In a
+transport of insane rage the frenzied emperor raised his iron-bound
+staff and struck to the earth with a mortal blow this hope of his race.
+
+This was his last excess. Regret for his hasty act, though not remorse
+for his murders, assailed him, and he soon after died, after twenty-six
+years of insane cruelties, ordering new executions almost with his
+latest breath.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA._
+
+
+In the year 1558 a family of wealthy merchants, Stroganof by name, began
+to barter with the Tartar tribes dwelling east of the Ural Mountains.
+Ivan IV. had granted to this family the desert districts of the Kama,
+with great privileges in trade, and the power to levy troops and build
+forts--at their own expense--as a security against the robbers who
+crossed the Urals to prey upon their settled neighbors to the west. In
+return the Stroganofs were privileged to follow their example in a more
+legal manner, by the brigandage of trade between civilization and
+barbarism.
+
+These robbers came from the region now known as Siberia, which extends
+to-day through thousands of miles of width, from the Urals to the
+Pacific. Before this time we know little about this great expanse of
+land. It seems to have been peopled by a succession of races, immigrants
+from the south, each new wave of people driving the older tribes deeper
+into the frozen regions of the north. Early in the Christian era there
+came hither a people destitute of iron, but expert in the working of
+bronze, silver, and gold. They had wide regions of irrigated fields, and
+a higher civilization than that of those who in time took their place.
+
+People of Turkish origin succeeded these tribes about the eleventh
+century. They brought with them weapons of iron and made fine pottery.
+In the thirteenth century, when the great Mongol outbreak took place
+under Genghis Khan, the Turkish kingdom in Siberia was destroyed and
+Tartars took their place. Civilization went decidedly down hill. Such
+was the state of affairs when Russia began to turn eyes of longing
+towards Siberia.
+
+The busy traders of Novgorod had made their way into Siberia as early as
+the eleventh century. But this republic fell, and the trade came to an
+end. In 1555, Khan Ediger, who had made himself a kingdom in Siberia,
+and whose people had crossed swords with the Russians beyond the Urals,
+sent envoys to Moscow, who consented to pay to Russia a yearly tribute
+of a thousand sables, thus acknowledging Russian supremacy.
+
+This tribute showed that there were riches beyond the mountains. The
+Stroganofs made their way to the barrier of the hills, and it was not
+long before the trader was followed by the soldier. The invasion of
+Siberia was due to an event which for the time threatened the total
+overthrow of the Russian government. A Cossack brigand, Stepan Rozni by
+name, had long defied the forces of the czar, and gradually gained in
+strength until he had an army of three hundred thousand men under his
+command. If he had been a soldier of ability he might have made himself
+lord of the empire. Being a brigand in grain, he was soon overturned and
+his forces dispersed.
+
+Among his followers was one Yermak, a chief of the Cossacks of the Don,
+whom the czar sentenced to death for his love of plunder, but afterwards
+pardoned. Yermak and his followers soon found the rule of Moscow too
+stringent for their ideas of personal liberty, and he led a Cossack band
+to the Stroganof settlements in Perm.
+
+Tradition tells us that the Stroganof of that date did not relish the
+presence of his unruly guests, with their free ideas of property rights,
+and suggested to Yermak that Siberia offered a promising field for a
+ready sword. He would supply him with food and arms if he saw fit to
+lead an expedition thither.
+
+The suggestion accorded well with Yermak's humor. He at once began to
+enlist volunteers for the enterprise, adding to his own Cossack band a
+reinforcement of Russians and Tartars and of German and Polish prisoners
+of war, until he had sixteen hundred and thirty-six men under his
+command. With these he crossed the mountains in 1580, and terrified the
+natives to submission with his fire-arms, a form of weapon new to them.
+Making their way down the Tura and Taghil Rivers, the adventurers
+crossed the immense untrodden forests of Tobol, and Kutchum, the Tartar
+khan, was assailed in his capital town of Ister, near where Tobolsk now
+stands.
+
+Many battles with the Tartars were fought, Ister was taken, the khan
+fled to the steppes, and his cousin was made prisoner by the
+adventurers. Yermak now, having added by his valor a great domain to the
+Russian empire, purchased the favor of Ivan IV. by the present of this
+new kingdom. He made his way to the Irtish and Obi, opened trade with
+the rich khanate of Bokhara, south of the desert, and in various ways
+sought to consolidate the conquest he had made. But misfortune came to
+the conqueror. One day, being surprised by the Tartars when unprepared,
+he leaped into the Irtish in full armor and tried to swim its rapid
+current. The armor he wore had been sent him by the czar, and had served
+him well in war. It proved too heavy for his powers of swimming, bore
+him beneath the hungry waters, and brought the career of the victorious
+brigand to an end. After his death his dismayed followers fled from
+Siberia, yielding it to Tartar hands again.
+
+Yermak--in his way a rival of Cortez and Pizarro--gained by his conquest
+the highest fame among the Russian people. They exalted him to the level
+of a hero, and their church has raised him to the rank of a saint, at
+whose tomb miracles are performed. As regards the Russian saints, it may
+here be remarked that they have been constructed, as a rule, from very
+unsanctified timber, as may be seen from the examples we have heretofore
+given. Not only the people and the priests but the poets have paid their
+tribute to Yermak's fame, epic poems having been written about his
+exploits and his deeds made familiar in popular song.
+
+Though the Cossacks withdrew after Yermak's death, others soon succeeded
+them. The furs of Siberia formed a rich prize whose allurement could not
+be ignored, and new bands of hunters and adventurers poured into the
+country, sustained by regular troops from Moscow. The advance was made
+through the northern districts to avoid the denser populations of the
+south. New detachments of troops were sent, who built forts and settled
+laborers around them, with the duty of supplying the garrisons with
+food, powder, and arms. By 1650 the Amur was reached and followed to the
+Pacific Ocean.
+
+It was a brief period in which to conquer a country of such vast extent.
+But no organized resistance was met, and the land lay almost at the
+mercy of the invaders. There was vigorous opposition by the tribes, but
+they were soon subdued. The only effective resistance they met was that
+of the Chinese, who obliged the Cossacks to quit the Amur, which river
+they claimed. In 1855 the advance here began again, and the whole course
+of the river was occupied, with much territory to its south. Siberia,
+thus conquered by arms, is being made secure for Russia by a
+trans-continental railroad and hosts of new settlers, and promises in
+the future to become a land of the greatest prosperity and wealth.
+
+[Illustration: KIAKHTA, SIBERIA.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE MACBETH OF RUSSIA._
+
+
+On the 15th of May, 1591, five boys were playing in the court-yard of
+the Russian palace at Uglitch. With them were the governess and nurse of
+the principal child--a boy ten years of age--and a servant-woman. The
+child had a knife in his hand, with which he was amusing himself by
+thrusting it into the ground or cutting a piece of wood.
+
+Unluckily, the attention of the women for a brief interval was drawn
+aside. When the nurse looked at her charge again, to her horror she
+found him writhing on the ground, bathed in blood which poured from a
+large wound in his throat.
+
+The shrieks of the nurse quickly drew others to the spot, and in a
+moment there was a terrible uproar, for the dying boy was no less a
+person than Dmitri, son of Ivan the Terrible, brother of Feodor, the
+reigning czar, and heir to the crown of Russia. The tocsin was sounded,
+and the populace thronged into the court-yard, thinking that the palace
+was on fire. On learning what had actually happened they burst into
+uncontrollable fury. The child had not killed himself, but had been
+murdered, they said, and a victim for their rage was sought.
+
+In a moment the governess was hurled bleeding and half alive to the
+ground, and one of her slaves, who came to her aid, was killed. The
+keeper of the palace was accused of the crime, and, though he fled and
+barred himself within a house, the infuriated mob broke through the
+doors and killed him and his son. The body of the child was carried into
+a neighboring church, and here the son of the governess, against whom
+suspicion had been directed, was murdered before it under his mother's
+eyes. Fresh victims to the wrath of the populace were sought, and the
+lives of the governess and some others were with difficulty saved.
+
+As for the child who had killed himself or had been killed, alarming
+stories had recently been set afloat. He was said to be the image of his
+terrible father, and to manifest an unnatural delight in blood and the
+sight of pain, his favorite amusement being to torture and kill animals.
+But it is doubtful if any of this was true, for there was then one in
+power who had a reason for arousing popular prejudice against the boy.
+
+That this may be better understood we must go back. Ivan had killed his
+ablest son, as told in a previous story, and Feodor, the present czar,
+was a feeble, timid, sickly incapable, who was a mere tool in the hands
+of his ambitious minister, Boris Godunof. Boris craved the throne.
+Between him and this lofty goal lay only the feeble Feodor and the child
+Dmitri, the sole direct survivors of the dynasty of Rurik. With their
+death without children that great line would be extinguished.
+
+The story of Boris reminds us in several particulars of that of the
+Scotch usurper Macbeth. His future career had been predicted, in the
+dead of night, by astrologers, who said, "You shall yet wear the
+crown." Then they became silent, as if seeing horrors which they dared
+not reveal. Boris insisted on knowing more, and was told that he should
+reign, but only for seven years. In joy he exclaimed, "No matter, though
+it be for only seven days, so that I reign!"
+
+This ambitious lord, who ruled already if he did not reign, had
+therefore a purpose in exciting prejudice against and distrust of
+Dmitri, the only heir to the crown, and in taking steps for his removal.
+Feodor dead, the throne would fall like ripe fruit into his own hands.
+
+Yet, whether guilty of the murder or not, he took active steps to clear
+himself of the dark suspicion of guilt. An inquest was held, and the
+verdict rendered that the boy had killed himself by accident. At once
+the regent proceeded to punish those who had taken part in the outbreak
+at Uglitch. The czaritza, mother of Dmitri, who had first incited the
+mob, was forced to take the veil. Her brothers, who had declared the act
+one of murder, were sent to remote prisons. Uglitch was treated with
+frightful severity. More than two hundred of its inhabitants were put to
+death. Others were maimed and thrown into dungeons. All the rest, except
+those who had fled, were exiled to Siberia, and with them was banished
+the very church-bell which had called them out by its tocsin peal. A
+town of thirty thousand inhabitants was depopulated that, as people
+said, every evidence of the guilt of Boris Godunof might be destroyed.
+
+This dreadful violence did Boris more harm than good. Macbeth stabbed
+the sleeping grooms to hide his guilt. Boris destroyed a city. But he
+only caused the people to look on him as an assassin and to doubt the
+motives of even his noblest acts.
+
+A fierce fire broke out that left much of Moscow in ruin. Boris rebuilt
+whole streets and distributed money freely among the people. But even
+those who received this aid said that he had set fire to the city
+himself that he might win applause with his money. A Tartar army invaded
+the empire and appeared at the gates of Moscow. All were in terror but
+Boris, who hastily built redoubts, recruited soldiers, and inspired all
+with his own courage. The Tartars were defeated, and hardly a third of
+them reached home again. Yet all the return the able regent received was
+the popular saying that he had called in the Tartars in order to make
+the people forget the death of Dmitri.
+
+A child was born to Feodor,--a girl. The enemies of the regent instantly
+declared that a boy had been born and that he had substituted for it a
+girl. It died in a few days, and then it was said that he had poisoned
+it.
+
+Yet Boris went on, disdaining his enemies, winning power as he went. He
+gained the favor of the clergy by giving Russia a patriarch of its own.
+The nobles who opposed him were banished or crushed. He made the
+peasants slaves of the land, and thus won over the petty lords. Cities
+were built, fortresses erected, the enemies of Russia defeated; Siberia
+was brought under firm control, and the whole nation made to see that
+it had never been ruled by abler hands.
+
+Boris in all this was strongly paving his way to the throne. In 1598 the
+weak Feodor died. He left no sons, and with him, its fifty-second
+sovereign, the dynasty of Rurik the Varangian came to an end. It had
+existed for more than seven centuries. Branches of the house of Rurik
+remained, yet no member of it dared aspire to that throne which the
+tyrant Ivan had made odious.
+
+A new ruler had to be chosen by the voice of those in power, and Boris
+stood supreme among the aspirants. The chronicles tell us, with striking
+brevity, "The election begins; the people look up to the nobles, the
+nobles to the grandees, the grandees to the patriarch; he speaks, he
+names Boris; and instantaneously, and as one man, all re-echo that
+formidable name."
+
+And now Godunof played an amusing game. He held the reins of power so
+firmly that he could safely enact a transparent farce. He refused the
+sceptre. The grandees and the people begged him to accept it, and he
+took refuge from their solicitations in a monastery. This comedy, which
+even Cæsar had not long played, Boris kept up for over a month. Yet from
+his cell he moved Russia at his will.
+
+In truth, the more he seemed to withdraw the more eager became all to
+make him accept. Priests, nobles, people, besieged him with their
+supplications. He refused, and again refused, and for six weeks kept all
+Russia in suspense. Not until he saw before him the highest grandees and
+clergy of the realm on their knees, tears in their eyes, in their hands
+the relics of the saints and the image of the Redeemer, did he yield
+what seemed a reluctant assent, and come forth from his cell to accept
+that throne which was the chief object of his desires.
+
+But Boris on the throne still resembled Macbeth. The memory of his
+crimes pursued him, and he sought to rule by fear instead of love. He
+endeavored, indeed, to win the people by shows and prodigality, but the
+powerful he ruled with a heavy hand, destroying all whom he had reason
+to fear, threatening the extinction of many great families by forbidding
+their members to marry, seizing the wealth of those he had ruined. The
+family of the Romanofs, allied to the line of Rurik, and soon to become
+pre-eminent in Russia, he pursued with rancor, its chief being obliged
+to turn monk to escape the axe. As monk he in time rose to the headship
+of the church.
+
+The peasantry, who had before possessed liberty of movement, were by him
+bound as serfs to the soil. Thousands of them fled, and an insupportable
+inquisition was established, as hateful to the landowners as to the
+serfs. All this was made worse by famine and pestilence, which ravaged
+Russia for three years. And in the midst of this disaster the ghost of
+the slain Dmitri rose to plague his murderer. In other words, one who
+claimed to be the slain prince appeared, and avenged the murdered child,
+his story forming one of the most interesting tales in the history of
+Russia. It is this which we have now to tell.
+
+About midsummer of the year 1603 Adam Wiszniowiecki, a Polish prince,
+angry at some act of negligence in a young man whom he had lately
+employed, gave him a box on the ear and called him by an insulting name.
+
+"If you knew who I am, prince," said the indignant youth, "you would not
+strike me nor call me by such a name."
+
+"Knew who you are! Why, who are you?"
+
+"I am Dmitri, son of Ivan IV., and the rightful czar of Russia."
+
+Surprised by this extraordinary statement, the prince questioned him,
+and was told a plausible story by the young man. He had escaped the
+murderer, he said, the boy who died being the son of a serf, who
+resembled and had been substituted for him by his physician Simon, who
+knew what Boris designed. The physician had fled with him from Uglitch
+and put him in the hands of a loyal gentleman, who for safety had
+consigned him to a monastery.
+
+The physician and gentleman were both dead, but the young man showed the
+prince a Russian seal which bore Dmitri's arms and name, and a gold
+cross adorned with jewels of great value, given him, he said, by his
+princely godfather. He was about the age which Dmitri would have
+reached, and, as a Russian servant who had seen the child said, had
+warts and other marks like those of the true Dmitri. He possessed also a
+persuasiveness of manner which soon won over the Polish prince.
+
+The pretender was accepted as an illustrious guest by Prince
+Wiszniowiecki, given clothes, horses, carriages, and suitable retinue,
+and presented to other Polish dignitaries. Dmitri, as he was thenceforth
+known, bore well the honors now showered upon him. He was at ease among
+the noblest; gracious, affable, but always dignified; and all said that
+he had the deportment of a prince.
+
+He spoke Polish as well as Russian, was thoroughly versed in Russian
+history and genealogy, and was, moreover, an accomplished horseman,
+versed in field sports, and of striking vigor and agility, qualities
+highly esteemed by the Polish nobles.
+
+The story of this event quickly reached Russia, and made its way with
+surprising rapidity through all the provinces. The czarevitch Dmitri had
+not been murdered, after all! He was alive in Poland, and was about to
+call the usurper to a terrible reckoning. The whole nation was astir
+with the story, and various accounts of his having been seen in Russia
+and of having played a brave part in the military expeditions of the
+Cossacks were set afloat.
+
+Boris soon heard of this claimant of the throne. He also received the
+disturbing news that a monk was among the Cossacks of the Don urging
+them to take up arms for the czarevitch who would soon be among them.
+His first movement was the injudicious one of trying to bribe
+Wiszniowiecki to give up the impostor to him,--the result being to
+confirm the belief that he was in truth the prince he claimed to be.
+
+The events that followed are too numerous to be given in detail, and it
+must suffice here to say that on October 31, 1604, Dmitri entered
+Russian territory at the head of a small Polish army, of less than five
+thousand in all. This was a trifling force with which to invade an
+empire, but it grew rapidly as he advanced. Town after town submitted on
+his appearance, bringing to him, bound and gagged, the governors set
+over them by Boris. Dmitri at once set them free and treated them with
+politic humanity.
+
+The first town to offer resistance was Novgorod-Swerski, which Peter
+Basmanof, a general of Boris, had garrisoned with five hundred men.
+Basmanof was brave and obstinate, and for several weeks he held the
+force of Dmitri before this petty place, while Boris was making vigorous
+efforts to collect an army among his discontented people. On the last
+day of 1604 the two armies met, fifteen thousand against fifty thousand,
+and on a broad open plain that gave the weaker force no advantage of
+position.
+
+But Dmitri made up for weakness by soldierly spirit. At the head of some
+six hundred mail-clad Polish knights he vigorously charged the Russian
+right wing, hurled it back upon the centre, and soon had the whole army
+in disorder. The soldiers flung down their arms and fled, shouting, "The
+czarevitch! the czarevitch!"
+
+Yet in less than a month this important victory was followed by a
+defeat. Dmitri had been weakened by his Poles being called home. Boris
+gathered new forces, and on January 20, 1605, the armies met again, now
+seventy thousand Muscovites against less than quarter their number. Yet
+victory would have come to Dmitri again but for treachery in his army.
+He charged the enemy with the same fierceness as before, bore down all
+before him, routed the cavalry, tore a great gap in the line of the
+infantry, and would have swept the field had the main body of his army,
+consisting of eight thousand Zaporogues, come to his aid.
+
+At this vital moment this great body of cavalry, half the entire army,
+wheeled and quit the field,--bribed, it is said, by Boris. Such a
+defection, at such a moment, was fatal. The Russians rallied; the day
+was lost; nothing but flight remained. Dmitri fled, hotly pursued, and
+his horse suffering from a wound. He was saved by his devoted Cossack
+infantry, four thousand in number, who stood to their guns and faced the
+whole Muscovite army. They were killed to a man, but Dmitri
+escaped,--favored, as we are told, by some of the opposing leaders, who
+did not want to make Boris too powerful.
+
+All was not lost while Dmitri remained at liberty. Lost armies could be
+restored. He took refuge in Putivle, one of the towns which had
+pronounced in his favor, and while his enemies, who proved half-hearted
+in the cause of Boris, wasted their time in besieging a small fortress,
+new adherents flocked to his banner. Boris was furious against his
+generals, but his fury caused them to hate instead of to serve him. He
+tried to get rid of Dmitri by poison, but his agents were discovered and
+punished, and the attempt helped his rival more than a victory would
+have done.
+
+Dmitri wrote to Boris, declaring that Heaven had protected him against
+this base attempt, and ironically promising to extend mercy towards him.
+"Descend from the throne you have usurped, and seek in the solitude of
+the cloister to reconcile yourself with Heaven. In that case I will
+forget your crimes, and even assure you of my sovereign protection."
+
+All this was bitter to the Russian Macbeth. The princely blood which he
+had shed to gain the throne seemed to redden the air about him. The
+ghost of his slain victim haunted him. His power, indeed, seemed as
+great as ever. He was an autocrat still, the master of a splendid court,
+the ruler over a vast empire. Yet he knew that they who came with
+reverence and adulation into his presence hated him in their hearts, and
+anguish must have smitten the usurper to the soul.
+
+His sudden death seemed to indicate this. On the 13th of April, 1605,
+after dining in state with some distinguished foreigners, illness
+suddenly seized him, blood burst from his mouth, nose, and ears, and
+within two hours he was dead. He had reigned six years,--nearly the full
+term predicted by the soothsayers.
+
+The story of Dmitri is a long one still, but must be dealt with here
+with the greatest brevity. Feodor, the son of Boris, was proclaimed czar
+by the boyars of the court. The oath of allegiance was taken by the
+whole city; all seemed to favor him; yet within six weeks this boyish
+czar was deposed and executed without a sword being drawn in his
+defence.
+
+Basmanof, the leading general of Boris, had turned to the cause of
+Dmitri, and the army seconded him. The people of Moscow declared in
+favor of the pretender, there were a few executions and banishments, and
+on the 20th of June the new czar entered Moscow in great pomp, amid the
+acclamations of an immense multitude, who thronged the streets, the
+windows, and the house-tops; and the young man who, less than two years
+before, had had his ears boxed by a Polish prince, was now proclaimed
+emperor and autocrat of the mighty Russian realm.
+
+It was a short reign to which the false Dmitri--for there seems to be no
+doubt of the death of the true Dmitri--had come. Within less than a year
+Moscow was in rebellion, he was slain, and the throne was vacant. And
+this result was largely due to his generous and kindly spirit, largely
+to his trusting nature and disregard of Russian opinion.
+
+No man could have been more unlike the tyrant Ivan, his reputed father.
+Dmitri proved kind and generous to all, even bestowing honors upon
+members of the family of Godunof. He remitted heavy taxes, punished
+unjust judges, paid the debts contracted by Ivan, passed laws in the
+interest of the serfs, and held himself ready to receive the petitions
+and redress the grievances of the humblest of his subjects. His
+knowledge of state affairs was remarkable for one of his age, and Russia
+had never had an abler, nobler-minded, and more kindly-hearted czar.
+
+But Dmitri in discretion was still a boy, and made trouble where an
+older head would have mended it. He offended the boyars of his council
+by laughing at their ignorance.
+
+"Go and travel," he said; "observe the ways of civilized nations, for
+you are no better than savages."
+
+The advice was good, but not wise. He offended the Russian demand for
+decorum in a czar by riding through the streets on a furious stallion,
+like a Cossack of the Don. In religion he was lax, favoring secretly the
+Latin Church. He chose Poles instead of Russians for his secretaries.
+And he excited general disgust by the announcement that he was about to
+marry a Polish woman, heretical to the Russian faith. The people were
+still more incensed by the conduct of Marina, this foreign bride, both
+before and after the wedding, she giving continual offence by her
+insistence on Polish customs.
+
+While thus offending the prejudices and superstitions of his people,
+Dmitri prepared for his downfall by his trustfulness and clemency. He
+dismissed the spies with whom former czars had surrounded themselves,
+and laid himself freely open to treachery. The result of his acts and
+his openness was a conspiracy, which was fortunately discovered.
+Shuiski, its leader, was condemned to be executed. Yet as he knelt with
+the axe lifted above him, he was respited and banished to Siberia; and
+on his way thither a courier overtook him, bearing a pardon for him and
+his banished brothers. His rank was restored, and he was again made a
+councillor of the empire.
+
+Clemency like this was praiseworthy, but it proved fatal. Like Cæsar
+before him, Dmitri was over-clement and over-confident, and with the
+same result. Yet his answer to those who urged him to punish the
+conspirator was a noble one, and his trustfulness worth far more than a
+security due to cruelty and suspicion.
+
+"No," he said, "I have sworn not to shed Christian blood, and I will
+keep my oath. There are two ways of governing an empire,--tyranny and
+generosity. I choose the latter. I will not be a tyrant. I will not
+spare money; I will scatter it on all hands."
+
+Only for the offence which he gave his people by disregarding their
+prejudices, Dmitri might have long and ably reigned. His confidence
+opened the way to a new conspiracy, of which Shuiski was again at the
+head. Reports were spread through the city that Dmitri was a heretic and
+an impostor, and that he had formed a plot to massacre the Muscovites by
+the aid of the Poles whom he had introduced into the city.
+
+As a result of the insidious methods of the conspirators, the whole city
+broke out in rebellion, and at daybreak on the 29th of May, 1606, a body
+of boyars gathered in the great square in full armor, and, followed by a
+multitude of townsmen, advanced on the Kremlin, whose gates were thrown
+open by traitors within.
+
+Dmitri, who had only fifty guards in the palace, was aroused by the din
+of bells and the uproar in the streets. An armed multitude filled the
+outer court, shouting, "Death to the impostor!"
+
+Soon conspirators appeared in the palace, where the czar, snatching a
+sword from one of the guards, and attended by Basmanof, attacked them,
+crying out, "I am not a Boris for you!"
+
+He killed several with his own hands, but Basmanof was slain before
+him, and he and the guards were driven back from chamber to chamber,
+until the guards, finding that the czar had disappeared, laid down their
+arms.
+
+Dmitri, seeing that resistance was hopeless, had sought a distant room,
+and here had leaped or been thrown from a window to the ground. The
+height was thirty feet, his leg was broken by the fall, and he fainted
+with the pain.
+
+His last hope of life was gone. Some faithful soldiers who found him
+sought to defend him against the mob who soon appeared, but their
+resistance was of no avail. Dmitri was seized, his royal garments were
+torn off, and the caftan of a pastry-cook was placed upon him. Thus
+dressed, he was carried into a room of the palace for the mockery of a
+trial.
+
+"Bastard dog," cried one of the Russians, "tell us who you are and
+whence you came."
+
+"You all know I am your czar," replied Dmitri, bravely, "the legitimate
+son of Ivan Vassilievitch. If you desire my death, give me time at least
+to collect my senses."
+
+At this a Russian gentleman named Valnief shouted out,--
+
+"What is the use of so much talk with the heretic dog? This is the way I
+confess this Polish fifer." And he put an end to the agony of Dmitri by
+shooting him through the breast.
+
+In an instant the mob rushed on the lifeless body, slashing it with axes
+and swords. It was carried out, placed on a table, and a set of
+bagpipes set on the breast with the pipe in the mouth.
+
+"You played on us long enough; now play for us," cried the ribald
+insulter.
+
+Others lashed the corpse with their whips, crying, "Look at the czar,
+the hero of the Germans."
+
+For three days Dmitri's body lay exposed to the view of the populace,
+but it was so hacked and mangled that none could recognize in it the
+gallant young man who a few days before had worn the imperial robes and
+crown.
+
+On the third night a blue flame was seen playing over the table, and the
+guards, frightened by this natural result of putrefaction, hastened to
+bury the body outside the walls. But superstitious terrors followed the
+prodigy: it was whispered that Dmitri was a wizard who, by magic arts,
+had the power to come to life from the grave. To prevent this the body
+was dug up again and burned, and the ashes were collected, mixed with
+gunpowder, and rammed into a cannon, which was then dragged to the gate
+by which Dmitri had entered Moscow. Here the match was applied, and the
+ashes of the late czar were hurled down the road leading to Poland,
+whence he had come.
+
+Thus died a man who, impostor though he seems to have been, was perhaps
+the noblest and best of all the Russian czars, while the story of his
+rise and fall forms the most dramatic tale in all the annals of the
+empire over which for one short year he ruled.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ERA OF THE IMPOSTORS._
+
+
+We have told how the ashes of Dmitri were loaded into a cannon and fired
+from the gate of Moscow. They fell like seeds of war on the soil of
+Russia, and for years that unhappy land was torn by faction and harried
+by invasion. From those ashes new Dmitris seemed to spring, other
+impostors rose to claim the crown, and until all these shades were laid
+peace fled from the land.
+
+Vassili Shuiski, the leader in the insurrection against Dmitri, had
+himself proclaimed czar. He was destined to learn the truth of the
+saying, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." For hardly had the
+mob that murdered Dmitri dispersed before rumors arose that their victim
+was not dead. His body had been so mangled that none could recognize it,
+and the story was set afloat that it was one of his officers who had
+been killed, and that he had escaped. Four swift horses were missing
+from the stables of the palace, and these were at once connected with
+the assumed flight of the czar. Rumor was in the air, and even in Moscow
+doubts of Dmitri's death grew rife.
+
+Fuel soon fell on the flame. Three strangers in Russian dress, but
+speaking the language of Poland, crossed the Oka River, and gave the
+ferryman the high fee of six ducats, saying, "You have ferried the
+czar; when he comes back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not forget
+your service."
+
+At a German inn, a little farther on, the same party used similar
+language. This story spread like wildfire through Russia, and deeply
+alarmed the new czar. To put it down he sought to play on the religious
+feelings of the Russians, by making a saint of the original Dmitri. A
+body was produced, said to have been taken from the grave of the slain
+boy at Uglitch, but in a remarkable state of preservation, since it
+still displayed the fresh hue of life and held in its hand some
+strangely preserved nuts. Tales of miracles performed by the relics of
+the new saint were also spread, but with little avail, for the people
+were not very ready to believe the man who had stolen the throne.
+
+War broke out despite these manufactured miracles. Prince
+Shakhofskoi--the supposed leader of the party who had told the story at
+the Oka--was soon in the field with an army of Cossacks and peasants,
+and defeated the royal army. But the new Dmitri, in whose name he
+fought, did not appear. It seemed as if Shakhofskoi had not yet been
+able to find a suitable person to play the part.
+
+Russia, however, was not long without a pretender. During Dmitri's reign
+a young man had appeared among the Cossacks of the Volga, calling
+himself Peter Feodorovitch, and claiming to be the son of the former
+czar Feodor. This man now reappeared and presented himself to the rebel
+army as the representative of his uncle Dmitri. He was eagerly welcomed
+by Shakhofskoi, who badly needed some one whom he might offer to his
+men as a prince.
+
+And now we have to describe one of the strangest sieges in the annals of
+history. Shakhofskoi, finding himself threatened by a powerful army,
+took refuge in the fortified town of Toula. Here he was soon joined by
+Bolotnikof, a Polish general who had come to Russia with a commission
+bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. In this stronghold they were
+besieged by an army of one hundred thousand men, led by the czar
+himself.
+
+Toula was strong. It was vigorously defended, the garrison fighting
+bravely for their lives. No progress was made with the siege, and
+Shuiski grew disconsolate, for he knew that to fail now would be ruin.
+
+From this state of anxiety he was relieved by a remarkable proposal,
+that of an obscure individual who promised to drown all the people of
+Toula and deliver the town into his hands. This extraordinary offer,
+made by a monk named Kravkof, was at first received with incredulous
+laughter, and it was some time before the czar and his council could be
+brought to listen to the words of an idle braggart, as they deemed the
+stranger. In the end the czar asked him to explain his plan.
+
+It proved to be the following. Toula lay in a narrow valley, down whose
+centre flowed the little river Oupa, passing through the town. Kravkof
+suggested that they should dam this stream below the town. "Do as I
+say," he remarked, "and if the whole town is not under water in a few
+hours, I will answer for the failure with my head."
+
+The project thus presented seemed feasible. Immediately all the millers
+in the army, men used to the kind of work required, were put under his
+orders, and the other soldiers were set to carrying sacks of earth to
+the place chosen for the dam. As this rose in height, the water backed
+up in the town. Soon many of the streets became canals, hundreds of
+houses, undermined by the water, were destroyed, and the promise of
+Kravkof seemed likely to be fulfilled.
+
+Yet the garrison, confined in what had become a walled-in lake, fought
+with desperate obstinacy. Water surrounded them, yet they waded to the
+walls and fought. Famine decimated them, yet they starved and fought. A
+terrible epidemic broke out in the water-soaked city, but the garrison
+fought on. Dreadful as were their surroundings, they held out with
+unflinching courage and intrepidity.
+
+The dam was the centre of the struggle. The besiegers sought to raise it
+still higher and deepen the water in the streets; the besieged did their
+best to break it down and relieve the city. It had grown to a great
+height with such rapidity that the superstitious people of Toula felt
+sure that magic had aided in its building and fancied that it might be
+destroyed by magic means. A monk declared that Shuiski had brought
+devils to his aid, but professed to be a proficient in the black art,
+and offered, for a hundred roubles, to fight the demons in their own
+element.
+
+Bolotnikof accepted his terms, and he stripped, plunged into the river,
+and disappeared. For a full hour nothing was seen of him, and every one
+gave him up for lost. But at the end of that time he rose to the surface
+of the water, his body covered with scratches. The story he had to tell
+was, to say the least, remarkable.
+
+"I have had a frightful conflict," he said, "with the twelve thousand
+devils Shuiski has at work upon his dam. I have settled six thousand of
+them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give
+in."
+
+Thus against men and devils alike, against water, famine, and
+pestilence, fought the brave men of Toula, holding out with
+extraordinary courage. Letters came to them in Dmitri's name, promising
+help, but it never came. At length, after months of this brave defence
+had elapsed, Shakhofskoi proposed that they should capitulate. The
+Cossacks of the garrison, furious at the suggestion, seized and thrust
+him into a dungeon. Not until every scrap of food had been eaten, horses
+and dogs devoured, even leather gnawed as food, did Bolotnikof and Peter
+the pretender offer to yield, and then only on condition that the
+soldiers should receive honorable treatment. If not, they would die with
+arms in their hands, and devour one another as food, rather than
+surrender. As for themselves, they asked for no pledges of safety.
+
+Shuiski accepted the terms, and the gates were opened. Bolotnikof
+advanced boldly to the czar and offered himself as a victim, presenting
+his sword with the edge laid against his neck.
+
+"I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightly or wrongly, calls
+himself Dmitri," he said. "Deserted by him, I am in your power. Cut off
+my head if you will; or, if you will spare my life, I will serve you as
+I have served him."
+
+This appeal was wasted on Shuiski. He forgot the clemency which the czar
+Dmitri had formerly shown to him, sent Bolotnikof to Kargopol, and soon
+after ordered him to be drowned. Peter the pretender was hanged on the
+spot. Shakhofskoi alone was spared. They found him in chains, which he
+said had been placed on him because he counselled the obstinate rebels
+to submit. Shuiski set him free, and the first use he made of his
+liberty was to kindle the rebellion again.
+
+Thus ended this remarkable siege, one in some respects without parallel
+in the history of war. What followed must be briefly told. Though the
+siege of Toula ended with the hanging of one pretender to the throne,
+another was already in the field. The new Dmitri, in whose name the war
+was waged, had made his appearance during the siege. Some of the
+officers of the first Dmitri pretended to recognize him, but in reality
+he was a coarse, vulgar, ignorant knave, who had badly learned his
+lesson, and lacked all the native princeliness of his predecessor.
+
+Yet he had soon a large army at his back, and with it, on April 24,
+1608, he defeated the army of the czar with great slaughter. He might
+easily have taken Moscow, but instead of advancing on it he halted at
+the village of Tushino, twelve versts away, where he held his court for
+seventeen months.
+
+Meanwhile still another pretender appeared, who called himself Feodor,
+son of the czar Feodor. He presented himself to the Don Cossacks, who
+brought him in chains to Dmitri, by whom he was promptly put to death.
+Soon afterwards Marina, wife of the first Dmitri, who had been released,
+with her father, by Shuiski, was brought into the camp of the pretender.
+And here an interesting bit of comedy was played. Marina, rather than go
+back to meet ridicule in Poland, was ready to become the wife of this
+vulgar impostor, though she saw at once that he was not the man he
+claimed to be.
+
+She met him coldly at first, but at a second meeting she greeted him
+with a great show of tenderness before the whole army, being glad, it
+would appear, to regain her old position on any terms. The news that
+Marina had recognized the pretender brought over numbers to his side,
+and soon nearly all Russia had declared for him, the only cities holding
+out being Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.
+
+The false Dmitri had now reached the summit of his fortunes. A rapid
+decline followed. One of his generals, who laid siege to the monastery
+of the Trinity, near Moscow, was repulsed. His partisans were defeated
+in other quarters. Soon the whole aspect of the war changed. A new enemy
+to Russia came into the field, Sigismund, King of Poland, who laid siege
+to the strong city of Smolensk, while the army of the czar, which
+marched to its relief, suffered an annihilating defeat.
+
+This result closed the reign of Shuiski. An insurrection broke out in
+Moscow, he was forced to become a monk, and in the end was delivered to
+Sigismund and died in prison. Thus was Dmitri avenged. The new
+condition of affairs proved as disastrous to the false Dmitri. His Poles
+deserted him, his power vanished, and he descended to the level of a
+mere Cossack robber. In December, 1610, murder ended his career.
+
+Smolensk fell after a siege of eighteen months, but at the last moment a
+powder magazine exploded and set fire to the city, and Sigismund became
+master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, attacked by the
+Russians, took possession of the Kremlin, burned down most of the city,
+and massacred a hundred thousand of the people. Anarchy was rampant
+everywhere. New chiefs appeared in all quarters. Each town declared for
+itself. The Swedes took possession of Novgorod. A third Dmitri appeared,
+and dwelt in state for a while, but was soon taken and hanged. The whole
+great empire was in a state of frightful confusion, and seemed as if it
+was about to fall to pieces.
+
+From this fate it was saved by one of the common people, a butcher of
+Nijni Novgorod, Kozma Minin by name. Brave, honest, patriotic, and
+sensible, this man aroused his fellow-citizens, who took up arms for the
+deliverance of their country. Other towns followed this example, an army
+was raised with Prince Pojarski at its head, and Minin, the patriotic
+butcher, seconded him in an administrative capacity, being hailed by the
+people as "the elect of the whole Russian empire."
+
+Driving the Poles before him, Pojarski entered Moscow, and in October,
+1612, became master of the Kremlin. The impostors all disappeared;
+Marina and her three-year-old son Ivan were captured, the child to be
+hanged and she to end her eventful life in prison; anarchy vanished, and
+peace returned to the realm.
+
+The end came in 1613, when a national council was convened to choose a
+new czar. Pojarski refused the crown, and Michael Romanof, a boy of
+sixteen, scion of one of the noblest families of Russia, and allied to
+the Ruriks by the female line, was elected czar. His descendants still
+hold the throne.
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH THE CZAR IS
+CROWNED.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY._
+
+
+The noble families of Russia, for the most part descendants of the
+Scandinavian adventurers who had come in with Rurik, were as proud in
+their way as the descendants of the vikings who came to England under
+William of Normandy. Their books of pedigree were kept with the most
+scrupulous care, and in these were set down not only the genealogies of
+the families, but every office that had been held by any ancestor, at
+court, in the army, or in the administration.
+
+With this there is no special fault to be found. It is as well,
+doubtless, to keep the pedigrees of men as it is to keep those of horses
+and dogs; though the animals, being ignorant of their records, are less
+likely to make them a matter of pride and presumption. In Russia the
+fact that certain men knew the names and standing of their ancestors led
+to the most absurd consequences. The books of ancestry were constantly
+appealed to for the support of foolish pretensions, and the nobles of
+Russia strutted like so many peacocks in their insensate pride of
+family.
+
+In no other country has the question of precedence been carried to such
+ridiculous lengths as it was in Russia in the days of the early
+Romanofs. If a nobleman were appointed to a post at court or a position
+in the army, he at once examined the books of ancestry to learn if the
+officials under whom he would serve had fewer ancestors on record than
+he. If such proved to be the case the office was refused, or accepted
+under protest, the government being, metaphorically, forced to fall on
+its knees to the haughtiness of its offended lordling.
+
+The folly of the nobles went even farther than this. The height of their
+genealogy counted for as much as its length. They would refuse to accept
+positions under persons whose ancestors were shown by the books to have
+been subordinate to theirs in the same positions. If it appeared that
+the John of five centuries before had been under the Peter of that
+period, the modern Peter was too proud to accept a similar position
+under the modern John. And so it went, until court life became a
+constant scene of bickering and discontent, and of murmurs at the most
+trifling slights and neglects. In short, it became necessary that an
+office of genealogy should be established at court, in which exact
+copies of the family trees and service registers of the noble families
+were kept, and the officers here employed found enough to keep them busy
+in settling the endless disputes of their lordly clients.
+
+In the reign of Theodore, the third czar of the Romanof dynasty, this
+ridiculous sentiment reached its climax, and it became almost impossible
+to appoint a wise man to office over a fool, if the fool's ancestors had
+happened to hold the same office over those of the man of wisdom. The
+fancy seemed to be held that folly and wisdom are handed down from
+father to son, a conceit which is often the very reverse of the truth.
+
+Theodore was a feeble youth, who reigned little more than five years,
+yet in that time he managed to bury this folly out of sight. Annoyed by
+the constant bickerings of courtiers and officials, he consulted with
+his able minister, Prince Vassili Galitzin, and hit on a means of
+ridding himself of the difficulty.
+
+Proclamation was made that all the noble families of the kingdom should
+deliver their service rolls into court by a fixed date, that they might
+be cleared of certain errors which had unavoidably crept into them. The
+order was obeyed, and a multitude of these precious documents were
+brought into the palace halls of the czar. The heads of the noble
+families and the higher clergy were now sent for, composing a proud
+assembly, before whom the patriarch, who had received his instructions,
+made an eloquent address. He ended by speaking of the claims to
+precedence in the following words:
+
+"They are a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive
+the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good
+grain; they have introduced, even into the hearts of families,
+dissension, confusion, and hatred. But the pontiff comprehends the grand
+design of his czar; God alone could have inspired it!"
+
+Though utterly ignorant of what that design was, the grandees felt
+compelled to express a warm approval of these words. At this Theodore,
+who pretended to be enraptured by their unanimous applause, suddenly
+rose, and, simulating a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, proclaimed the
+abolition of all their hereditary claims.
+
+"That the very recollection of them may be forever extinguished," he
+exclaimed, "let all the papers relative to these titles be instantly
+consumed."
+
+The fire was already prepared, and by his orders the precious papers
+were hurled into the flames before the anguished eyes of the nobles, who
+did not dare in that despotic court to express their true feelings, and
+strove to hide their dismay under hollow acclamations of assent.
+
+As what they deemed their most valuable possessions were thus converted
+to ashes before their eyes, the patriarch again rose, and declared an
+anathema against any one who should dare to oppose this order of the
+czar. An "Amen" that was like a groan came from the lips of the
+horrified nobles, and precedence went up in flames.
+
+The czar had no thought of effacing the noble families. New books were
+prepared, in which their ancestry was described. But the absurd claims
+which had caused such discord were forever abolished, and court life
+thereafter proved smoother and easier in consequence of the iconoclastic
+act of the czar Theodore.
+
+
+
+
+_BOYHOOD OF PETER THE GREAT._
+
+
+Peter the Great, grandson of the first emperor of the Romanof line, was
+a man of such extraordinary power of body and mind, such a remarkable
+combination of common sense, mental activity, advanced ideas, and
+determination to lift Russia to a high place among the nations, with
+cruelty, grossness, and infirmities of vice and passion, that his reign
+of forty-three years fills as large a place in Russian history as do the
+annals of all the preceding centuries, and the progress of Russia during
+this short period was greater than in any other epoch of three or four
+times its length.
+
+The character of the man showed in the boy, and while a mere child he
+began those steps of progress which were continued throughout his life.
+He had two brothers, both older than he, and sons of a different mother,
+so that the throne seemed far from his grasp. But Theodore, the oldest
+of the three, died after a brief reign, leaving no heirs to the throne.
+Ivan, the second son, was an imbecile, nearly blind, and subject to
+epileptic fits. The clergy and grandees, in consequence, looked upon
+Peter as the most promising successor to the throne. But he was still
+only a child, not yet ten years of age.
+
+The czar Alexis had left also several daughters; but in those days the
+fate of princesses of the blood was a harsh one. They were not permitted
+to marry, and were consigned to convents, where they knew nothing of
+what was passing in the busy world without. One of the daughters, Sophia
+by name, had escaped from this fate. At her earnest request she was
+taken from the convent and permitted to nurse her sickly brother
+Theodore.
+
+She was a woman of high intelligence, bold and ambitious by nature, and
+during her residence in court learned much of the politics of the empire
+and took some part in its government. After the death of Theodore she
+contrived to have herself named regent for her two brothers, Ivan being
+plainly unfit to rule, and Peter too young.
+
+There are many stories told about her, of which probably the half are
+not true. It is said that she kept her young brother at a distance from
+Moscow, where she surrounded him with ministers of evil, whose business
+it was to encourage him in riot and dissipation, to the end that he
+might become a moral monster, odious and insupportable to the nation at
+large. Such a course had been pursued with Ivan the Terrible, and to it
+was largely due his incredible iniquity.
+
+If Sophia had really any such purpose in view, she was playing with
+edge-tools. She quite mistook the character of her young brother, and
+forgot that the same rule may work differently in different cases. The
+steps taken to make the boy base, if really so intended, aided to make
+him great. His morals were corrupted, his health was impaired, and his
+heart hardened by the excesses of his youth, but his removal from the
+palace atmosphere of flattery and effeminacy tended to make him
+self-reliant, while his free life in the country and the activity which
+it encouraged helped to develop the native energy of his character.
+
+It is probable that Sophia had no such intention to corrupt the nature
+of the child, for she showed no ill will against him. It was apparently
+to his mother, rather than to his sister, that his residence in the
+country was due, and he was obliged to go frequently to Moscow, to take
+part in ceremonial affairs, while his name was used in all public
+documents, many of which he was required to sign.
+
+From early life the boy had shown himself active, intelligent, quick to
+learn, and full of curiosity. He was particularly interested in military
+affairs, and playing at soldiers was one of the leading diversions of
+his youth. Only a day or two after a great riot in Moscow, in which
+numbers of nobles were slaughtered, and in which the child had looked
+unmoved into the savage faces of the rioters, he sent to the arsenal for
+drums, banners, and arms. Uniforms and wooden cannon were supplied him,
+and on his eleventh birthday--in 1683--he was allowed to have some real
+guns, with which he fired salutes.
+
+From his country home at Preobrajensk messengers came almost daily to
+Moscow for powder, lead, and shot; small brass and iron cannon were
+supplied the boy, and drummer-boys, selected from the different
+regiments, were sent to him. Thus he was allowed to play at soldier to
+his heart's content.
+
+A company was formed from the younger domestics of the place, fifty in
+number, the officers being sons of the boyars or lords. But these were
+required by the alert boy to pass through all the grades of the service,
+which he also did himself, serving successively as private, sergeant,
+lieutenant, and captain, and finally as colonel of the regiment which
+grew from this youthful company. Peter called his company "the guards,"
+but it was known in Moscow as the "pleasure company," or "troops for
+sport." In time, however, it grew into the Preobrajensky Guards, a
+celebrated regiment which is still kept up as the first regiment of the
+Russian Imperial Guard, and of which the emperor is always the colonel.
+Another company, formed on the same plan in an adjoining village, became
+the Semenofsky Regiment. From these rudiments grew the present Russian
+army.
+
+These military exercises soon ceased to be child's play to the active
+lad. He gave himself no rest from his prescribed duties, stood his watch
+in turn, shared in the labors of the camp, slept in the tents of his
+comrades, and partook of their fare. He used to lead his company on long
+marches, during which the strictest discipline was maintained, and the
+camps at night were guarded as in an enemy's country.
+
+On reaching his thirteenth year the boy took further steps in his
+military education, building a small fortress, whose remains are still
+preserved. This was constructed with great care, and took nearly a year
+to build. At the suggestion of a German officer it was named Pressburg,
+the name being given with much ceremony, Peter leading from Moscow a
+procession of most of the court officials and nobles to take part in the
+performance.
+
+These military sports were not enough for the active mind of the boy,
+who kept himself busy at a dozen labors. He used to hammer and forge in
+the blacksmith's shop, became an expert with the lathe, and learned the
+art of printing and binding books. He built himself a wheelbarrow and
+other articles which he needed, and at a later date it was said that he
+"knew excellently well fourteen trades."
+
+When in Moscow, Peter spent much of his time in the foreign quarter,
+joining his associates there in the beer, wine, and tobacco of which
+they were specially fond, and questioning them about a thousand subjects
+unknown to the Russians, thus acquiring a wide knowledge of men and
+affairs. He troubled himself little about rank or position, making a
+companion of any one, high or low, from whom anything could be learned,
+while any mechanical curiosity particularly attracted him.
+
+A sextant and astrolabe were brought him from France, of whose use no
+one could inform him, though he asked all whom he met. At length a Dutch
+merchant, Franz Timmermann by name, was brought him, who measured with
+the instrument the distance to a neighboring house.
+
+Peter was delighted, and eagerly asked to be taught how to use the
+instrument himself.
+
+"It is not so easy," replied Timmermann; "you must first learn
+arithmetic and geometry."
+
+Here was a new incentive. The boy at once set to work, spending all his
+leisure time, day and night, over these studies, to which he afterwards
+added geography and fortification. It was in this desultory way that his
+education was gained, no regular course of training being prescribed,
+and his strong self-will breaking through all family discipline.
+
+We may end here what we have to say about the boy's military activity.
+His army gradually grew until it numbered five thousand men, mainly
+foreigners, who were commanded by General Gordon, a Scotch officer.
+Lefort, a Swiss, who had become one of Peter's favorite companions, now
+undertook to raise an army of twelve thousand men. He succeeded in this,
+and unexpectedly found himself made general of this force.
+
+It is, however, of the boy's activity in naval affairs that we must now
+speak. Timmermann had become one of his constant companions, and was
+always teaching him something new. One day in 1688, when Peter was
+sixteen years old, he was wandering about one of the country estates of
+the throne, near the village of Ismailovo. An old building in the
+flax-yard attracted his attention, and he asked one of the servants what
+it was.
+
+"It is a storehouse," the man said, "in which was put all the rubbish
+that was left after the death of Nikita Romanof, who used to live here."
+
+Peter at once, curious to see this "rubbish," had the doors opened, went
+in, and looked about. In one corner, bottom upward, lay a boat, very
+different in build from the flat-bottomed, square-sterned boats which
+were in use on the Russian rivers.
+
+"What is that?" he asked.
+
+"It is an English boat," said Timmermann.
+
+"But what is it good for? Is it better than our boats?" demanded Peter.
+
+"Yes. If you had sails for it, you would find that it would not only go
+with the wind, but against the wind."
+
+"Against the wind! Is that possible? How can it be possible?"
+
+With his usual impatience, the boy wanted to try it at once. But the
+boat proved to be too rotten for use. It would need to be repaired and
+tarred, and a mast and sails would have to be made.
+
+Where could these be had? Who could make them? Timmermann was able to
+tell him. Some thirty years before, a number of Dutch ship-carpenters
+had been brought from Holland and had built some vessels on the Volga
+River for the czar Alexis. These had been burned by a brigand, and
+Brandt, the builder, had returned to Moscow, where he still worked as a
+joiner. In those days it was easier to get into Russia than to get out
+again, foreigners who entered the land being held there as virtual
+prisoners. Even General Gordon tried in vain to get back to his native
+land.
+
+Old Brandt was found, looked over the boat, put it in order, and
+launched it on a neighboring stream. To Peter's surprise and delight, he
+saw the boat moving under sail up and down the river, turning to right
+and left in obedience to the helm. Greatly excited, he called on Brandt
+to stop, jumped in, and, under the old man's directions, began to manage
+the boat himself.
+
+But the river was too narrow and the water too shallow for easy
+sailing, and the energetic boy had the boat dragged overland to a large
+pond, where it went better, but still not to his satisfaction. Where was
+a better body of water? He was told that there was a large lake about
+fifty miles away, but that it would be easier to build a new boat than
+to drag the English boat that distance.
+
+"Can you do that?" asked the eager boy.
+
+"Yes, sire," said Brandt, "but I will need many things."
+
+"Oh, that does not matter at all," said Peter. "We can have anything."
+
+No time was lost. Brandt, with one of his old comrades and Timmermann,
+went to work at once in the woods bordering the lake, Peter working with
+them when he could get away from Moscow, where he was frequently needed.
+It took time. Timber had to be prepared, a hut built to live in, and a
+dock to launch the boats, which were built on a larger scale than the
+small English craft. Thus it was not until the following spring that the
+new boats were ready to launch.
+
+Peter meanwhile had been married. But the charms of his wife could not
+keep him from his beloved boats. Back he went, aided in completing and
+launching the new craft, and took such delight in sailing them about the
+lake that he could hardly be induced to return to Moscow for important
+duties.
+
+In this humble way began the Russian navy, which had grown to large
+proportions before Peter died. The little English boat, which some think
+was one sent by Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, has ever since
+Peter's time been known as the "Grand-sire of the Russian navy." It is
+kept with the greatest care in a small brick building within the
+fortress at St. Petersburg, and was one of the principal objects of
+interest in the great parade in that city in 1870 on the two hundredth
+anniversary of Peter's birth.
+
+It will suffice to say, in conclusion, that shortly after these events
+Peter became the reigning czar, and turned from sport to earnest. Sophia
+had enjoyed so long the pleasure of ruling that her ambition grew with
+its exercise, and she sought to retain her position as long as possible.
+It is even said that she laid a plot to assassinate Peter, so that only
+the feeble Ivan should be left. The boy, told that assassins were
+seeking him, fled for his life. His fright seems to have been
+groundless, but it made him an undying enemy of his sister. The affair
+ended in the bulk of the nobility and soldiery turning to his side and
+in Sophia being obliged to leave the throne for a convent, where she
+spent the remainder of her life in the misery of strict seclusion.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA.]
+
+
+
+
+_CARPENTER PETER OF ZAANDAM._
+
+
+On the banks of the river Zaan, about five miles from Amsterdam, lies
+the picturesque little town of Zaandam, with its cottages of blue,
+green, and pink, half hidden among the trees, while a multitude of
+windmills surround the town like so many monuments to thrift and
+enterprise. Here, two centuries ago, ship-building was conducted on a
+great scale, the timber being sawed by windmill power, while the workmen
+were so numerous that a vessel was often on the sea in five weeks after
+the keel had been laid.
+
+To this place, in August, 1697, came a workman of foreign birth, who
+found humble quarters in a small frame hut and entered himself as a
+ship-carpenter at the wharf of Lynst Rogge. There was nothing specially
+noticeable about the stranger, who wore a workman's dress and a
+tarpaulin hat. But with him were some comrades dressed in the strange
+garb of Russia, who attracted the attention of the people.
+
+As for the new workman, he did not long escape curious looks. The rumor
+had got about that no less a personage than the Czar of Russia was in
+the town, and it began to be suspected that this unobtrusive stranger
+might be the man, so that it was not long before inquisitive eyes began
+to follow him wherever he went. The rumor soon brought large crowds
+from Amsterdam, whose presence made the streets of the small Dutch town
+anything but comfortable.
+
+It was well known that Peter I., Czar of Russia, was travelling through
+the nations of the West. A large embassy, composed of several hundred
+people, some of them the highest officials of the court, had left the
+Muscovite kingdom, and visited the several courts and large cities on
+their route, being everywhere received with the greatest distinction.
+But the czar did not appear openly among them. He was there in disguise,
+but had given strict orders that his presence should not be revealed. He
+hated crowds, hated adulation, and wished only to be let alone to see
+and learn all he could. So while the ambassadors were receiving the
+highest honors of kingdoms and courts and bowing and parading to their
+hearts' content, the czar kept himself in the background as an amused
+spectator, thought by most observers to be one of the servants of the
+gorgeous train.
+
+And thus he reached Zaandam, which he had been told was the best place
+to learn how ships were built. Here he saw fishing in the river one of
+his old acquaintances of the foreign quarter of Moscow, a smith named
+Gerrit Kist. Calling him from his rod, and binding him to secrecy, he
+told him why he had come to Holland, and insisted on taking up quarters
+in his house. This house, a small frame hut, is now preserved as a
+sacred object, enclosed within a brick building, and has long been a
+place of pilgrimage even for royal travellers. Emperors and kings have
+bent their lofty heads to enter its low door.
+
+Yet Peter lived in Zaandam only a week, and during that week did little
+work at ship-building, spending much of his time in rowing about among
+the shipping, and visiting most of the factories and mills, at one of
+which he made a sheet of paper with his own royal hands.
+
+One day the disguised emperor met with an adventure. He had bought a
+hatful of plums, and was eating them in the most plebeian fashion as he
+walked along the street, when he met a crowd of boys. He shared his
+fruit with some of these, but those to whom he refused to give plums
+began to follow him with boyish reviling, and when he laughed at them
+they took to pelting him with mud and stones. Here was a situation for
+an emperor away from home. The Czar of all the Russias had to take to
+his heels and run for refuge to the Three Swans Inn, where he sent for
+the burgomaster of the town, told who he was, and demanded aid and
+relief. At least we may suppose so, for an edict was soon issued
+threatening punishment to all who should insult "distinguished persons
+who wished to remain unknown."
+
+The end of Peter's stay soon came. A man in Zaandam had received a
+letter from his son in Moscow, saying that the czar was with the great
+Russian embassy, and describing him so closely that he could no longer
+remain unknown. This letter was seen by Pomp, the barber of Zaandam, and
+when Peter came into his place with his Russian comrades he at once knew
+him from the description and spread the news.
+
+From that time the czar had no rest. Wherever he went he was followed by
+crowds of curious people. They grew so annoying that at length he
+leaped in anger from his boat and gave one of the most forward of his
+persecutors a sharp cuff on the cheek.
+
+"Bravo, Marsje!" cried the crowd in delight: "you are made a knight."
+
+The czar rushed angrily to an inn, where he shut himself up out of
+sight. The next day a large ship was to be moved across the dike by
+means of capstans and rollers, a difficult operation, in which Peter
+took deep interest. A place was reserved for him to see it, but the
+crowd became so great as to drive back the guards, break down the
+railings, and half fill the reserved space. Peter, seeing this, refused
+to leave his house. The burgomaster and other high officials begged him
+to come, but the most he could be got to do was to thrust his head out
+of the door and observe the situation.
+
+"_Te veel volks, te veel volks_" ("too many people"), he bluntly cried,
+and refused to budge.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and all Amsterdam seemed to have come to
+Zaandam to see its distinguished guest. He escaped them by fleeing to
+Amsterdam. Getting to a yacht he had bought, and to which he had fitted
+a bowsprit with his own hands, he put to sea, giving no heed to warnings
+of danger from the furious wind that was blowing. Three hours after he
+reached Amsterdam, where his ambassadors then were, and where they were
+to have a formal reception the next day.
+
+Receptions were well enough for ambassadors, but they were idle flummery
+to the czar, who had come to see, not to be seen, and who did his best
+to keep out of sight. He visited the fine town hall, inspected the
+docks, saw a comedy and a ballet, consented to sit through a great
+dinner, witnessed a splendid display of fireworks, and, most interesting
+to him of all, was entertained with a great naval sham fight, which
+lasted a whole day.
+
+Zaandam has the credit of having been the scene of Peter the Great's
+labor as a shipwright, but it was really at Amsterdam that his life as a
+workman was passed. At his request he was given the privilege of working
+at the docks of the East India Company, a house being assigned him
+within the enclosure where he could dwell undisturbed, free from the
+curiosity of crowds. As a mark of respect it was determined to begin the
+construction of a new frigate, one hundred feet long, so that the
+distinguished workman might see the whole process of the building of a
+ship. With his usual impetuosity Peter wished to begin work immediately,
+and could hardly be induced to wait for the fireworks to burn themselves
+out. Then he set out for Zaandam on his yacht to fetch his tools, and
+the next day, August 30, presented himself as a workman at the East
+India Company's wharf.
+
+For more than four months, with occasional breaks, Peter worked
+diligently as a ship-carpenter, ten of his Russian companions--probably
+much against their will--working at the wharf with him. He was known
+simply as Baas Peter (Carpenter Peter), and, while sitting on a log at
+rest, with his hatchet between his knees, was willing to talk with any
+one who addressed him by this name, but had no answer for those who
+called him Sire or Your Majesty. Others of the Russians were put to work
+elsewhere, to study the construction of masts, blocks, sails, etc., some
+of them were entered as sailors before the mast, and Prince Alexander of
+Imeritia went to the Hague to study artillery. None of them was allowed
+"to take his ease at his inn."
+
+Peter insisted on being treated as a common workman, and would not
+permit any difference to be made between him and his fellow-laborers. He
+also demanded the usual wages for his work. On one occasion, when the
+Earl of Portland and another nobleman came to the yard to have a sight
+of him, the overseer, to indicate him, called out, "Carpenter Peter of
+Zaandam, why don't you help your comrades?" Without a word, Peter put
+his shoulders under a log which several men were carrying, and helped to
+lift it to its place.
+
+His evenings were spent in studying the theory of ship-building, and his
+spare hours were fully occupied in observation. He visited everything
+worth seeing, factories, museums, cabinets of coins, theatres,
+hospitals, etc., constantly making shrewd remarks and inquiries, and
+soon becoming known from his quick questions, "What is that for? How
+does that work? That will I see."
+
+He went to Zaandam to see the Greenland whaling fleet, visited the
+celebrated botanical garden with the great Boerhaave, studied the
+microscope at Delft under Leuwenhoek, became intimate with the military
+engineer Coehorn, talked with Schynvoet of architecture, and learned to
+etch from Schonebeck. An impression of a plate made by him, of
+Christianity victorious over Islam, is still extant.
+
+He made himself familiar with Dutch home life, mingled with the
+merchants engaged in the Russian trade, went to the Botermarkt every
+market-day, and took lessons from a travelling dentist, experimenting on
+his own servants and suite, probably not much to their enjoyment. He
+mended his own clothes, learned enough of cobbling to make himself a
+pair of slippers, and, in short, was insatiable in his search for
+information of every available kind.
+
+His work on the frigate whose keel he had helped to lay was continued
+until it was launched. It was well built, and for many years proved a
+good and useful ship, braving the perils of the seas in the East India
+trade. But with all this the imperial carpenter was not satisfied. The
+Dutch methods did not please him. The ship-masters seemed to work
+without rules other than the "rule of thumb," having no theory of
+ship-building from which the best proportions of a vessel could be
+deduced.
+
+Learning that things were ordered differently in English ship-yards,
+that there work was done by rule and precept, Peter sent an order to the
+Russian docks not to allow the Dutch shipwrights to work as they
+pleased, but to put them under Danish or English overseers. For himself,
+he resolved to go to England and follow up his studies there. King
+William had sent him a warm invitation and presented him a splendid
+yacht, light, beautifully proportioned, and armed with twenty brass
+cannon. Delighted with the present, he sailed in it to England,
+escorted by an English fleet, and in London found an abiding-place in a
+house which a few years before had been the refuge of William Penn when
+charged with treason. Here he slept in a small room with four or five
+companions, and when the King of England came to visit him, received his
+fellow-monarch in his shirt-sleeves. The air of the room was so bad
+that, though the weather was very cold, William insisted on a window
+being raised.
+
+In England the czar, though managing to see much outside the ship-yards,
+worked steadily at Deptford for several months, leaving only when he had
+gained all the special knowledge which he could obtain. His admiration
+for the English ship-builders was high, he afterwards saying that but
+for his journey to England he would have always remained a bungler.
+While here he engaged many men to take service in Russia, shipwrights,
+engineers, and others; he also engaged numerous officers for his navy
+from Holland, several French surgeons, and various persons of other
+nationality, the whole numbering from six to eight hundred skilled
+artisans and professional experts. To raise money for their advance
+payment he sold the monopoly of the Russian tobacco trade for twenty
+thousand pounds. Sixty years before, his grandfather Michael had
+forbidden the use of tobacco in Russia under pain of death, and the
+prejudice against it was still strong. But in spite of this the use of
+tobacco was rapidly spreading, and Peter thus threw down the bars.
+
+Great numbers of anecdotes are afloat about Peter's doings in Holland
+and England,--many of them, doubtless, invented. The sight of a great
+monarch going about in workman's clothes and laboring like a common
+ship-carpenter was apt to aid the imagination of story-tellers and give
+rise to numerous tales with little fact to sustain them.
+
+In May, 1698, Peter left England and proceeded to Amsterdam, where his
+embassy had remained, often in great distress about him, for the winter
+was cold and stormy and at one time no news was received from him for a
+month. From Amsterdam he made his way to Vienna, whence he proposed to
+go to Venice and Rome, but was prevented by disturbing news from Moscow,
+which turned his steps homeward. Here he was to show a new phase of his
+varied character, as will be seen in the following tale.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ._
+
+
+History presents us with four instances of an imperial soldiery who took
+the power into their own hands and for a time ruled as the tyrants of a
+nation. These were the Pretorian Guards of Rome, the Mamelukes of Egypt,
+the Janissaries of Turkey, and the Strelitz of Russia. Of these, the
+Pretorian Guards remained pre-eminent, and made emperors at their will.
+The other three came to a terrible end. History elsewhere records the
+tragic fate of the Mamelukes and the Janissaries: we are here concerned
+only with that of the Strelitz corps of Russia.
+
+The Strelitz were the first regular military force of Russia, a
+permanent militia of fusileers, formed during the early reign of Ivan
+the Terrible, and themselves in time becoming a terror to the nation.
+The first serious outbreak of this dangerous civic guard was on the
+nomination of Peter I. to the throne of the czar. They did not dream
+then of the terrible revenge which this despised boy would take upon
+them.
+
+Two days after the funeral of the czar Theodore the insurrection began,
+the Strelitz marching in an armed body to the Kremlin, where they
+accused nine of their colonels of defrauding them of their pay. The
+frightened ministers hastened to dismiss these officers, but this did
+not satisfy the savage soldiery, who insisted on their being delivered
+into their hands. This done, the unfortunate officers were sentenced to
+be scourged, some of them by that fearful Russian whip called the knout.
+
+Their success in this outbreak led the Strelitz to greater outrages. The
+tiger in their savage natures was let loose, and only blood could
+appease its rage. Marching to the Kremlin, they declared that the late
+czar had been poisoned by his doctor, and demanded the death of all
+those in the plot. Breaking into the palace, they seized two of the
+suspected princes and flung them from the windows, to be received upon
+the pikes of the soldiers in the street below. The next victim was one
+of the Narishkins, the uncles of Peter the Great. He was massacred in
+the same brutal manner and his bleeding body dragged through the
+streets. Three of the proscribed nobles had fled for sanctuary to a
+church, but were torn from the altar, stripped of their clothing, and
+cut to pieces with knives.
+
+The next victim was a friend and favorite of the Strelitz, who was
+killed under the belief that he was one of the Narishkins. Discovering
+their error, the assassins carried the mangled body of the young
+nobleman to the house of his father for interment. The old man, timid by
+nature, did not dare to complain of the savage act, and even rewarded
+them for bringing him the body of his son. For this weakness he was
+bitterly reproached by his wife and daughters and the weeping wife of
+the victim.
+
+"What could I do?" pleaded the helpless father; "let us wait for an
+opportunity to be revenged."
+
+A revengeful servant overheard these words and repeated them to the
+soldiers. In a sudden fury the savages returned, dragged the old man
+from the room by the hair of his head, and cut his throat at his own
+door.
+
+Meanwhile some of the Strelitz, seeking the Dutch physician Vongad, who
+had attended the dying czar and was accused of poisoning him, met his
+son and asked where his father was. "I do not know," replied the
+trembling youth. His ignorance was instantly punished with death.
+
+In a few minutes a German physician fell in their way. "You are a
+doctor," they cried. "If you have not poisoned our master Theodore, you
+have poisoned others. You deserve death." And in a moment the unlucky
+doctor fell a victim to their blind rage.
+
+The Dutch physician was at length discovered and dragged to the palace.
+Here the princesses begged hard for his life, declaring that he was a
+skilful doctor and a good man and had worked hard to save their
+brother's life. They answered that he deserved to die as a sorcerer as
+well as a physician, for they had found the skeleton of a toad and the
+skin of a snake in his cabinet.
+
+The next victim demanded was Ivan Narishkin, who they were sure was
+somewhere concealed in the palace. Not finding him, they threatened to
+burn down the building unless he were delivered into their hands. At
+this terrifying threat the young man was taken from his place of
+concealment and brought to them by the patriarch, who held in his hands
+an image of the Virgin Mary which was said to have performed miracles.
+The princesses surrounded the victim, and, kneeling to the soldiers,
+prayed with tears for his life.
+
+All their supplications and the demands of the venerable patriarch were
+without effect on the savage soldiery, who dragged their captives to the
+bottom of the stairway, went through the forms of a mock trial, and
+condemned them to the torture. They were sentenced to be cut to pieces,
+a form of punishment to which parricides are condemned in China and
+Tartary. This tragedy went on until all the proscribed on whom they
+could lay their hands had perished and Sophia felt secure in her power.
+
+In the end, Ivan and Peter were declared joint sovereigns (1682), and
+their sister Sophia was made regent. The acts of the Strelitz were
+approved and they rewarded, the estates of their victims were
+confiscated in their favor, and a monument was erected on which the
+names of the victims were inscribed as traitors to their country.
+
+The Strelitz had learned their power, and took frequent occasion to
+exercise it. Twice again they broke out in revolt during the regency of
+Sophia. After the accession of Peter their hostility continued. He had
+sent them to fight on the frontiers. He had supplanted them with
+regiments drilled in the European manner. He had organized a corps of
+twelve thousand foreigners and heretics. He had ordered the construction
+of a fleet of a hundred vessels, which would add to the weight of taxes
+and bring more foreigners into the country. And he proposed to leave
+Russia, to journey in the lands of the heretics, and to bring back to
+their sacred land the customs of profane Europe.
+
+All this was too much for the leaders of the Strelitz, who represented
+old Russia, as Peter represented new. They resolved to sacrifice the
+czar to their rage. Tradition tells the following story, which, though
+probably not true, is at least interesting. Two leaders of the Strelitz
+laid a plot to start a fire at night, feeling sure that Peter, with his
+usual activity, would hasten to the scene. In the confusion attending
+the fire they meant to murder him, and then to massacre all the
+foreigners whom he had introduced into Moscow.
+
+[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT. MOSCOW.]
+
+The time fixed for the consummation of this plot was at hand. A banquet
+was held, at which the principal conspirators assembled, and where they
+sought in deep potations the courage necessary for their murderous work.
+Unfortunately for them, liquor does not act on all alike. While usually
+giving boldness, it sometimes produces timidity. Two of the villains
+lost their courage through their potations, left the room on some
+pretext, promising to return in time, and hastened to the czar with the
+story of the plot.
+
+Peter knew not the meaning of the words timidity and procrastination.
+His plans were instantly laid. The time fixed for the conflagration was
+midnight. He gave orders that the hall in which the conspirators were
+assembled should be surrounded exactly at eleven. Soon after, thinking
+that the hour had come, he sought the place alone and boldly entered
+the room, fully expecting to find the conspirators in the hands of his
+guards.
+
+To his consternation, not a guard was present, and he found himself
+alone and unarmed in the midst of a furious band who were just swearing
+to compass his destruction.
+
+The situation was a critical one. The conspirators, dismayed at this
+unlooked-for visit, rose in confusion. Peter was furious at his guards
+for having exposed him to this peril, but instantly perceived that there
+was only one course for him to pursue. He advanced among the throng of
+traitors with a countenance that showed no trace of his emotions, and
+pleasantly remarked,--
+
+"I saw the light in your house while passing, and, thinking that you
+must be having a gay time together, I have come in to share your
+pleasure and drain a cup with you."
+
+Then, seating himself at the table, he filled a cup and drank to his
+would-be assassins, who, on their feet about him, could not avoid
+responding to the toast and drinking his health.
+
+But this state of affairs did not long continue. The courage of the
+conspirators returned, and they began to exchange looks and signs. The
+opportunity had fallen into their hands; now was the time to avail
+themselves of it. One of them leaned over to Sukanim, one of their
+leaders, and said, in a low tone,--
+
+"Brother, it is time."
+
+"Not yet," said Sukanim, hesitating at the critical moment.
+
+At that instant Peter heard the footsteps of his guards outside, and,
+starting to his feet, knocked the leader of the assassins down by a
+violent blow in his face, exclaiming,--
+
+"If it is not yet time for you, scoundrel, it is for me."
+
+At the same moment the guards entered the room, and the conspirators,
+panic-stricken by the sight, fell on their knees and begged for pardon.
+
+"Chain them!" said the czar, in a terrible voice.
+
+Turning then to the commander of the guards, he struck him and accused
+him of having disobeyed orders. But the officer proving to him that the
+hour fixed had just arrived, the czar, in sudden remorse at his haste,
+clasped him in his arms, kissed him on the forehead, proclaimed his
+fidelity, and gave the traitors into his charge.
+
+And now Peter showed the savage which lay within him under the thin
+veneer of civilization. The conspirators were put to death with the
+cruellest of tortures, and, to complete the act of barbarity, their
+heads were exposed on the summit of a column with their limbs arranged
+around them as ornaments.
+
+Satisfied that this fearful example would keep Russia tranquil during
+his absence, Peter set out on his journey, visiting most of the
+countries of Western Europe. He had reached Vienna, and was on the point
+of setting out for Venice, when word was brought him from Russia that
+the Strelitz had broken out in open insurrection and were marching from
+their posts on the frontier upon Moscow.
+
+The czar at once left Vienna and journeyed with all possible speed to
+Russia, reaching Moscow in September, 1698. His appearance took all by
+surprise, for none knew that he had yet left Austria.
+
+He came too late to suppress the insurrection. That had been already
+done by General Gordon, who, marching in all haste, had met the rebels
+about thirty miles from Moscow and called on them to surrender. As they
+refused and attacked the troops, he opened on them with cannon, put them
+to flight, and of the survivors took captive about two thousand. These
+were decimated on the spot, and the remainder imprisoned.
+
+This was punishment enough for a soldier, but not enough for an
+autocrat, whose mind was haunted by dark suspicions, and who looked upon
+the outbreak as a plot to dethrone him and to call his sister Sophia to
+the throne. In his treatment of the prisoners the spirit of the monster
+Ivan IV. seems to have entered into his soul, and the cruelty shown,
+while common enough in old-time Russia, is revolting to the modern mind.
+
+The trial was dragged out through six weeks, with daily torture of some
+of the accused, under the eyes of the czar himself, who sought to force
+from them a confession that Sophia had been concerned in the outbreak.
+The wives of the prisoners, all the women servants of the princesses,
+even poor beggars who lived on their charity, were examined under
+torture. The princesses themselves, Peter's sisters, were questioned by
+the czar, though he did not go so far as to torture them. Yet with all
+this nothing was discovered. There was not a word to connect Sophia with
+the revolt.
+
+The trial over, the executions began. Of the prisoners, some were
+hanged, some beheaded, others broken on the wheel. It is said that those
+beheaded were made to kneel in rows of fifty before trunks of trees laid
+on the ground, and that Peter compelled his courtiers and nobles to act
+as executioners, Mentchikof specially distinguishing himself in this
+work of slaughter. It is even asserted that the czar wielded the axe
+himself, though of this there is some doubt. The opinion grew among the
+people that neither Peter nor Prince Ramodanofsky, his cruel viceroy,
+could sleep until they had tasted blood, and a letter from the prince
+contains the following lurid sentence: "_I am always washing myself in
+blood._"
+
+The headless bodies of the dead were left where they had fallen. The
+long Russian winter was just beginning, and for five months they lay
+unburied, a frightful spectacle for the eyes of the citizens of Moscow.
+
+Of those hanged, nearly two hundred were left depending from a large
+square gallows in front of the cell of Sophia at the convent in which
+she was confined, and with a horrible refinement of cruelty three of
+these bodies were so placed as to hang all winter under her very window,
+one of them holding in his hand a folded paper to represent a petition
+for her aid.
+
+The six regiments of Strelitz still on the frontier showed signs of a
+similar outbreak, but the news of the executions taught them that it was
+safest to keep quiet. But many of them were brought in chains to Moscow
+and punished for their intentions. Various stories are told of Peter's
+cruelty in connection with these executions. One is that he beheaded
+eighty with his own hand, Plestchef, one of his boyars, holding them by
+the hair. Another story, told by M. Printz, the Prussian ambassador,
+says that at an entertainment given him by the czar, Peter, when drunk,
+had twenty rebels brought in from the prisons, whom he beheaded in quick
+succession, drinking a bumper after each blow, the whole concluding
+within the hour. He even asked the ambassador to try his skill in the
+same way. It may be said here, however, that these stories rest upon
+very poor evidence, and that anecdote-makers have painted Peter in
+blacker colors than he deserves.
+
+In the end the corps of the Strelitz was abolished, their houses and
+lands in Moscow were taken from the survivors, and all were exiled into
+the country, where they became simple villagers.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS._
+
+
+The return of Peter the Great from his European journey was marked by
+other events than his cruel revenge upon the rebellious Strelitz. That
+had affected only a few thousand people; the reforms he sought to
+introduce affected the nation at large. The Russians were then more
+Oriental than European in style, wearing the long caftan or robe of
+Persia and Turkey, which descended to their heels, while their beards
+were like those of the patriarchs, the man deeming himself most in honor
+who had the longest and fullest crop of hair upon his face.
+
+[Illustration: PETER THE GREAT.]
+
+To Peter, fresh from the West, and strongly imbued with European views,
+all this was ridiculous, if not abominable. He determined to reform it
+all, and at once set to work in his impetuous way, which could not brook
+a day's delay, to deprive the Russians of their beards and the tails of
+their coats. He had scarcely arrived before the boyars and leading
+citizens of Moscow, who flocked to congratulate him on his return, were
+taken aback by the edict that whiskers were condemned, and that the
+razor must be set at work without delay upon their honorable chins.
+
+This edict was like a thunder-clap from a clear sky. The Russians
+admired and revered their beards. They were time-honored and sacred in
+their eyes. To lose them was like losing their family trees and patents
+of nobility. But Peter was without reverence for the past, and his word
+was law. He had ordered a mowing and reaping of hair, and the harvest
+must be made, or worse might come. General Shein, commander-in-chief of
+the army, was the first to yield to the imperative edict and submit his
+venerable beard to the indignity of the razor's edge. The old age seemed
+past and the new age come when Shein walked shamefacedly into court with
+a clean chin.
+
+The example thus set was quickly followed. Beards were tabooed within
+the precincts of the court. All shared the same fate, none being left to
+laugh at the rest. The patriarch, it is true, was exempted, through awe
+for his high office in the Church, while reverence for advanced years
+reprieved Prince Tcherkasy, and Tikhon Streshnef was excused out of
+honor for his services as guardian of the czaritza. Every one else
+within the court had to submit to the razor's fatal edge or feel the
+czar's more fatal displeasure, and beards fell like "autumnal leaves
+that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."
+
+An observer speaks as follows concerning a feast given by General Shein:
+"A crowd of boyars, scribes, and military officers almost incredible was
+assembled there, and among them were several common sailors, with whom
+the czar repeatedly mixed, divided apples, and even honored one of them
+by calling him his brother. A salvo of twenty-five guns marked each
+toast. Nor could the irksome offices of the barber check the
+festivities of the day, though it was well known he was enacting the
+part of jester by appointment at the czar's court. It was of evil omen
+to make show of reluctance as the razor approached the chin, and
+hesitation was to be forthwith punished with a box on the ears. In this
+way, between mirth and the wine-cup, many were admonished by this insane
+ridicule to abandon the olden guise."
+
+For Peter to shave was easy, as he had little beard and a very thin
+moustache. But by the old-fashioned Russian of his day the beard was
+cherished as the Turk now cherishes his hirsute symbol of dignity or the
+Chinaman his long-drawn-out queue. Shortly after Peter came to the
+throne the patriarch Adrian had delivered himself in words of thunder
+against all who were so unholy and heretical as to cut or shave their
+beards, a God-given ornament, which had been worn by prophets and
+apostles and by Christ himself. Only heretics, apostates,
+idol-worshippers, and image-breakers among monarchs had forced their
+subjects to shave, he declared, while all the great and good emperors
+had indicated their piety in the length of their beards.
+
+To Peter, on the contrary, the beard was the symbol of barbarity. He was
+not content to say that his subjects might shave, he decreed that they
+_must_ shave. It began half in jest, it was continued in solid earnest.
+He could not well execute the non-shavers, or cut off the heads of those
+who declined to cut off their beards, but he could fine them, and he
+did. The order was sent forth that all Russians, with the exception of
+the clergy, should shave. Those who preferred to keep their beards
+could do so by paying a yearly tax into the public treasury. This was
+fixed at a kopeck (one penny) for peasants, but for the higher classes
+varied from thirty to a hundred rubles (from sixty dollars to two
+hundred dollars). The merchants, being at once the richest and most
+conservative class, paid the highest tax. Every one who paid the tax was
+given a bronze token, which had to be worn about the neck and renewed
+every year.
+
+The czar would allow no one to be about him who did not shave, and many
+submitted through "terror of having their beards (in a merry humor)
+pulled out by the roots, or taken so rough off that some of the skin
+went with them." Many of those who shaved continued to do reverence to
+their beards by carrying them within their bosoms as sacred objects, to
+be buried in their graves, in order that a just account might be
+rendered to St. Nicholas when they should come to the next world.
+
+The ukase against the beard was soon followed by one against the caftan,
+or long cloak, the old Russian dress. The czar and the leading officers
+of his embassy set the example of wearing the German dress, and he cut
+off, with his own hands, the long sleeves of some of his officers.
+"Those things are in your way," he would say. "You are safe nowhere with
+them. At one moment you upset a glass, then you forgetfully dip them in
+the sauce. Get gaiters made of them."
+
+On January 14, 1700, a decree was issued commanding all courtiers and
+officials throughout the empire to wear the foreign dress. This decree
+had to be frequently repeated, and models of the clothing exposed. It is
+said that patterns of the garments and copies of the decrees were hung
+up together at the gates of the towns, while all who disobeyed the order
+were compelled to pay a fine. Those who yielded were obliged "to kneel
+down at the gates of the city and have their coats cut off just even
+with the ground," the part that lay on the ground as they kneeled being
+condemned to suffer by the shears. "Being done with a good humor, it
+occasioned mirth among the people, and soon broke the custom of their
+wearing long coats, especially in places near Moscow and those towns
+wherever the czar came."
+
+This demand did not apply to the peasantry, and was therefore more
+easily executed. Even the women were required to change their Russian
+robes for foreign fashions. Peter's sisters set the example, which was
+quickly followed, the women showing themselves much less conservative
+than the men in the adoption of new styles of dress.
+
+The reform did not end here. Decrees were issued against the high
+Russian boots, against the use of the Russian saddle, and even against
+the long Russian knife. Peter seemed to be infected with a passion for
+reform, and almost everything Russian was ordered to give way before the
+influx of Western modes. Western ideas did not come with them. To change
+the dress does not change the thoughts, and it does not civilize a man
+to shave his chin. Though outwardly conforming to the advanced fashions
+of the West, inwardly the Russians continued to conform to the
+unprogressive conceptions of the East.
+
+It may be said that these changes did not come to stay. They were too
+revolutionary to take deep root. There is no disputing the fact that a
+coat down to the heels is more comfortable in a cold climate than one
+ending at the knees, and is likely to be worn in preference. Students in
+Russia to-day wear the red shirt, the loose trousers tucked into the
+high boots, and the sleeveless caftan of the peasant, to show that they
+are Slavs in feeling, while the old Russian costume is the regulation
+court dress for ladies on occasions of state.
+
+We cannot here name the host of other reforms which Peter introduced.
+The army was dressed and organized in the fashion of the West. A navy
+was rapidly built, and before many years Russia was winning victories at
+sea. Peter had not worked at Amsterdam and Deptford in vain. The money
+of the country was reorganized, and new coins were issued. The year,
+which had always begun in Russia on September 1, was now ordered to
+begin on January 1, the first new year on the new system, January 1,
+1700, being introduced with impressive ceremonies. Up to this time the
+Russians had counted their year from the supposed date of creation. They
+were now ordered to date their chronology from the birth of Christ, the
+first year of the new era being dated 1700 instead of 7208. Unluckily,
+the Gregorian calendar was not at the same time introduced, and Russia
+still clings to the old style, so that each date in that country is
+twelve days behind the same date in the rest of the Christian world.
+
+Another reform of an important character was introduced. Peter had
+observed the system of local self-government in other countries, and
+resolved to have something like it in his realm. In Little Russia the
+people already had the right of electing their local officials. A
+similar system was extended to the whole empire, the merchants in the
+towns being permitted to choose good and honest men, who formed a
+council which had general charge of municipal affairs. Where bribery and
+corruption were discovered among these officials the knout and exile
+were applied as inducements to honesty in office. Even death was
+threatened; yet bribery went on. Honesty in office cannot be made to
+order, even by a czar.
+
+
+
+
+_MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF._
+
+
+Among the romantic characters of history none have attained higher
+celebrity than the hero of our present tale, whose remarkable adventure,
+often told in story, has been made immortal in Lord Byron's famous poem
+of "Mazeppa." Those who wish to read it in all its dramatic intensity
+must apply to the poem. Here it can only be given in plain prose.
+
+Mazeppa was a scion of a poor but noble Polish family, and became, while
+quite young, a page at the court of John Casimir, King of Poland. There
+he remained until he reached manhood, when he returned to the vicinity
+of his birth. And now occurred the striking event on which the fame of
+our hero rests. The court-reared young man is said to have engaged in an
+intrigue with a Polish lady of high rank, or at least was suspected by
+her jealous husband of having injured him in his honor.
+
+Bent upon a revenge suitable to the barbarous ideas of that age, the
+furious nobleman had the young man seized, cruelly scourged, and in the
+end stripped naked and firmly bound upon the back of an untamed horse of
+the steppes. The wild animal, terrified by the strange burden upon its
+back, was then set free on the borders of its native wilds of the
+Ukraine, and, uncontrolled by bit or rein, galloped madly for miles upon
+miles through forest and over plain, until, exhausted by the violence
+of its flight, it halted in its wild career. For a dramatic rendering of
+this frightful ride our readers must be referred to Byron's glowing
+verse.
+
+The savage Polish lord had not dreamed that his victim would escape
+alive, but fortune favored the poor youth. He was found, still fettered
+to the animal's back, insensible and half dead, by some Cossack
+peasants, who rescued him from his fearful situation, took him to their
+hut, and eventually restored him to animation.
+
+Mazeppa was well educated and fully versed in the art of war of that
+day. He made his home with his new friends, to whom his courage,
+agility, and sagacity proved such warm recommendations that he soon
+became highly popular among the Cossack clans. He was appointed
+secretary and adjutant to Samilovitch, the hetman or chief of the
+Cossacks, and on the disgrace and exile of this chief in 1687 Mazeppa
+succeeded him as leader of the tribe. He distinguished himself
+particularly in the war waged by the army of the Princess Sophia against
+the Turks and Tartars of the Crimea, in which Mazeppa led his Cossack
+followers with the greatest courage and skill.
+
+On the return of the army to Moscow, Prince Galitzin, its leader,
+brought into the capital a strong force of Cossacks, with Mazeppa at
+their head. It was the first time the Cossacks had been allowed to enter
+Moscow, and their presence gave great offence. It was supposed to be a
+part of the plot of Sophia to dethrone her young brother and seize the
+throne for herself. It was known that they would execute to the full
+any orders given them by their chief; but their motions were so
+restricted by the indignant people that the ambitious woman, if she
+entertained such a design, found herself unable to employ them in it.
+
+The daring hetman of the Cossacks became afterwards a cherished friend
+of Peter the Great, who conferred on him the title of prince, and
+severely punished those who accused him of conspiring with the enemies
+of Russia. Having the fullest confidence in his good faith, Peter
+banished or executed his foes as liars and traitors. Yet they seem to
+have been the true men and Mazeppa the traitor, for at length, when
+sixty-four years of age, he threw off allegiance to Russia and became an
+ally of the Swedish enemies of the realm.
+
+The fiery and ungovernable temper of Peter is said to have been the
+cause of this. The story goes that one day, when Mazeppa was visiting
+the Russian court, and was at table with the czar, Peter complained to
+him of the lawless character of the Cossacks, and proposed that Mazeppa
+should seek to bring them under better control by a system of
+organization and discipline.
+
+The chief replied that such measures would never succeed. The Cossacks
+were so fierce and uncontrollable by nature, he said, and so fixed in
+their irregular habits of warfare, that it would be impossible to get
+them to submit to military discipline, and they must continue to fight
+in their old, wild way.
+
+These words were like fire to flax. Peter, who never could bear the
+least opposition to any of his plans or projects, and was accustomed to
+have everybody timidly agree with him, broke into a furious rage at this
+contradiction, and visited his sudden wrath on Mazeppa, as usual, in the
+most violent language. He was an enemy and a traitor, who deserved to be
+and should be impaled alive, roared the furious czar, not meaning a
+tithe of what he said, but saying enough to turn the high-spirited chief
+from a friend to a foe.
+
+Mazeppa left the czar's presence in deep offence, muttering the
+displeasure which it would have been death to speak openly, and bent on
+revenge. Soon after he entered into communication with Charles XII. of
+Sweden, the bitter enemy of Russia, which he was then invading. He
+suggested that the Swedish army should advance into Southern Russia,
+where the Cossacks would be sure to be sent to meet it. He would then go
+over with all his forces to the Swedish side, so strengthening it that
+the army of the czar could not stand against it. The King of Sweden
+might retain the territory won by his arms, while the Cossacks would
+retire to their own land, and become again, as of old, an independent
+tribe.
+
+The plot was well laid, but it failed through the loyalty of the
+Cossacks. They broke into wild indignation when Mazeppa unfolded to them
+his plan, most of them refusing to join in the revolt, and threatening
+to seize him and deliver him, bound hand and foot, to the czar. Some two
+thousand in all adhered to Mazeppa, and for a time it seemed as if a
+bloody battle would take place between the two sections of the tribe,
+but in the end the chief and his followers made their way to the Swedish
+camp, while the others marched back and put themselves under the command
+of the nearest Russian general.
+
+Mazeppa was now sentenced to death, and executed,--luckily for him, in
+effigy only. In person he was out of the reach of his foes. A wooden
+image was made to represent the culprit, and on this dumb block the
+penalties prescribed for him were inflicted. A pretty play--for a savage
+horde--they made of it. The image was dressed to imitate Mazeppa, while
+representations of the medals, ribbons, and other decorations he usually
+wore were placed upon it. It was then brought out before the general and
+leading officers, the soldiers being drawn up in a square around it. A
+herald now read the sentence of condemnation, and the mock execution
+began. First Mazeppa's patent of knighthood was torn to pieces and the
+fragments flung into the air. Then the medals and decorations were rent
+from the image and trampled underfoot. Finally the image itself was
+struck a blow that toppled it over into the dust. The hangman now took
+it in hand, tied a rope round its neck, and dragged it to a gibbet, on
+which it was hung. The affair ended in the Cossacks choosing a new
+chief.
+
+The remainder of Mazeppa's story may soon be told. The battle of
+Pultowa, fought, it is said, by his advice, ended the military career of
+the great Swedish general. The Cossack chief made his escape, with the
+King of Sweden, into Turkish territory, and the reward which the czar
+offered for his body, dead or alive, was never claimed. Mentchikof took
+what revenge he could by capturing and sacking his capital city,
+Baturin, while throughout Russia his name was anathematized from the
+pulpit. Traitor in his old days, and a fugitive in a foreign land, the
+disgrace of his action seemed to weigh heavily upon the mind of the old
+chief of the Ukraine, and in the following year he put an end to the
+wretchedness of his life by poison.
+
+
+
+
+_A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE._
+
+
+Peter the Great hated Moscow. It was to him the embodiment of that old
+Russia which he was seeking to reform out of existence. Had he been able
+to work his own will in all things, he would never have set foot within
+its walls; but circumstances are stronger than men, even though the
+latter be Russian czars. In one respect Peter set himself against
+circumstance, and built Russia a capital in a locality seemingly lacking
+in all natural adaptation for a city.
+
+In the early days of the eighteenth century his armies captured a small
+Swedish fort on Lake Ladoga near the river Neva. The locality pleased
+him, and he determined to build on the Neva a city which should serve
+Russia as a naval station and commercial port in the north. Why he
+selected this spot it is not easy to say. Better localities for his
+purpose might have been easily chosen. There was old Novgorod, a centre
+of commerce during many centuries of the past, which it would have been
+a noble tribute to ancient Russian history to revive. There was Riga, a
+city better situated for the Baltic commerce. But Peter would have none
+of these; he wanted a city of his own, one that should carry his name
+down through the ages, that should rival the Alexandria of Alexander the
+Great, and he chose for it a most inauspicious and inhospitable site.
+
+The Neva, a short but deep and wide stream, which carries to the sea
+the waters of the great lakes Ladoga, Onega, and Ilmen, breaks up near
+its mouth and makes its way into the Gulf of Finland through numerous
+channels, between which lie a series of islands. These then bore Finnish
+names equivalent to Island of Hares, Island of Buffaloes, and the like.
+Overgrown with thickets, their surfaces marshy, liable to annual
+overflow, inhabited only by a few Finnish fishermen, who fled from their
+huts to the mainland when the waters rose, they were far from promising;
+yet these islands took Peter's fancy as a suitable site for a commercial
+port, and with his usual impetuosity he plunged into the business of
+making a city to order.
+
+[Illustration: ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER.]
+
+In truth, he fell in love with the spot, though what he saw in it to
+admire is not so clear. In summer mud ruled there supreme: the very name
+Neva is Finnish for "mud." During four months of the year ice took the
+place of mud, and the islands and stream were fettered fast. The country
+surrounding was largely a desert, its barren plains alternating with
+forests whose only inhabitants were wolves. Years after the city was
+built, wolves prowled into its streets and devoured two sentries in
+front of one of the government buildings. Moscow lay four hundred miles
+away, and the country between was bleak and almost uninhabited. Even
+to-day the traveller on leaving St. Petersburg finds himself in a
+desert. The great plain over which he passes spreads away in every
+direction, not a steeple, not a tree, not a man or beast, visible upon
+its bare expanse. There is no pasturage nor farming land. Fruits and
+vegetables can scarcely be grown; corn must be brought from a distance.
+Rye is an article of garden culture in St. Petersburg, cabbages and
+turnips are its only vegetables, and a beehive there is a curiosity.
+
+Yet, as has been said, Peter was attracted to the place, which in one of
+his letters he called his "paradise." It may have reminded him of
+Holland, the scene of his nautical education. The locality had a certain
+sacredness in Russian tradition, being looked upon as the most ancient
+Russian ground. By the mouth of the Neva had passed Rurik and his
+fellows in their journeys across the Varangian sea,--_their own sea_.
+The czar was willing to restore to Sweden all his conquests in Livonia
+and Esthonia, but the Neva he would not yield. From boyhood he had
+dreamed of giving Russia a navy and opening it up to the world's
+commerce, and here was a ready opening to the waters of the Baltic and
+the distant Atlantic.
+
+St. Petersburg owed its origin to a whim; but it was the whim of a man
+whose will swayed the movements of millions. He was not even willing to
+begin his work on the high ground of the mainland, but chose the Island
+of Hares, the nearest of the islands to the gulf. It was a seaport, not
+a capital, that he at first had in view. Legend tells us that he
+snatched a halberd from one of his soldiers, cut with it two strips of
+turf, and laid them crosswise, saying, "Here there shall be a town."
+Then, dropping the halberd, he seized a spade and began the first
+embankment. As he dug, an eagle appeared and hovered above his head.
+Shot by one of the men, it fluttered to his feet. Picking up the wounded
+bird, he set out in a boat to explore the waters around. To this event
+is given the date of May 16, 1703.
+
+The city began in a fortress, for the building of which carpenters and
+masons were brought from distant towns. The soldiers served as laborers.
+In this labor tools were notable chiefly for their absence. Wheelbarrows
+were unknown; they are still but little used in Russia. Spades and
+baskets were equally lacking, and the czar's impatience could not wait
+for them to be procured. The men scraped up the earth with their hands
+or with sticks and carried it in the skirts of their caftans to the
+ramparts. The czar sent orders to Moscow that two thousand of the
+thieves and outlaws destined for Siberia should be despatched the next
+summer to the Neva.
+
+The fort was at first built of wood, which was replaced by stone some
+years afterwards. Logs served for all other structures, for no stone was
+to be had. Afterwards every boat coming to the town was required to
+bring a certain number of stones, and, to attract masons to the new
+city, the building of stone houses in Moscow or elsewhere was forbidden.
+As for the fortress, which was erected at no small cost in life and
+money, it soon became useless, and to-day it only protects the mint and
+cathedral of St. Petersburg.
+
+The new city, named Petersburg from its founder, has long been known as
+St. Petersburg. While the fort was in process of erection a church was
+also built, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. The site of this wooden
+edifice is now occupied by the cathedral, begun in 1714, ten years
+later. As regarded a home for himself, Peter was easily satisfied. A hut
+of logs--his palace he called it--was built near the fortress,
+fifty-five feet long by twenty-five wide, and containing but three
+rooms. At a later date, to preserve this his first place of residence in
+his new city, he enclosed it within another building. Thus it still
+remains, a place of pilgrimage for devout Russians. It contains many
+relics of the great czar. His bedroom is now a chapel.
+
+Such a city, in such a situation, should have taken years to build.
+Peter wished to have it done in months, and he pushed the labor with
+little regard for its cost in life and treasure. Men were brought from
+all sections of Russia and put to work. Disease broke out among them,
+engendered by the dampness of the soil; but the work went on. Floods
+came and covered the island, drowning some of the sick in their beds;
+but there was no alleviation. History tells us that Swedish prisoners
+were employed, and that they died by thousands. Death, in Peter's eyes,
+was only an unpleasant incident, and new workmen were brought in
+multitudes, many of them to perish in their turn. It has been said that
+the building of the city cost two hundred thousand lives. This is, no
+doubt, an exaggeration, but it indicates a frightful mortality. But the
+feverish impatience of the czar told in results, and by 1714 the city
+possessed over thirty-four thousand buildings, with inhabitants in
+proportion.
+
+The floods came and played their part in the work of death. In that of
+1706, Peter measured water twenty-one inches deep on the floor of his
+hut. He thought it "extremely amusing" as men, women, and children were
+swept past his windows on floating wreckage down the stream. What the
+people themselves thought of it history does not say.
+
+[Illustration: SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA.]
+
+As yet Peter had no design of making St. Petersburg the capital of his
+empire. That conception seems not to have come to him until after the
+crushing defeat of the Swedish monarch Charles XII. at the battle of
+Pultowa. And indeed it was not until 1817 that it was made the capital.
+It was the fifth Russian capital, its predecessors in that honor having
+been Novgorod, Kief, Vladimir, and Moscow.
+
+To add a commercial quarter to the new city, Peter chose the island of
+Vasily Ostrof,--the Finnish "Island of Buffaloes,"--where a town was
+laid out in the Dutch fashion, with canals for streets. This island is
+still the business centre of the city, though the canals have long since
+disappeared. The streets of St. Petersburg for many years continued
+unpaved, notwithstanding the marshy character of the soil, and in the
+early days boats replaced carriages for travel and traffic.
+
+The work of building the new capital was not confined to the czar. The
+nobles were obliged to build palaces in it,--very much to their chagrin.
+They hated St. Petersburg as cordially as Peter hated Moscow. They
+already had large and elegant mansions in the latter city, and had
+little relish for building new ones in this desert capital, four hundred
+miles to the north. But the word of the czar was law, and none dared say
+him nay. Every proprietor whose estate held five hundred serfs was
+ordered to build a stone house of two stories in the new city. Those of
+greater wealth had to build more pretentious edifices. Peter's own taste
+in architecture was not good. He loved low and small rooms. None of his
+palaces were fine buildings. In building the Winter Palace, whose
+stories were made high enough to conform to others on the street, he had
+double ceilings put in his special rooms, so as to reduce their height.
+
+The city under way, the question of its defence became prominent. The
+Swedes, the mortal enemies of the czar, looked with little favor on this
+new project, and their prowling vessels in the gulf seemed to threaten
+it with attack. Peter made vigorous efforts to prepare for defence.
+Ship-building went on briskly on the Svir River, between Lakes Ladoga
+and Onega, and the vessels were got down as quickly as possible into the
+Neva. Peter himself explored and measured the depth of water in the Gulf
+of Finland. Here, some twenty miles from the city, lay the island of
+Cronslot, seven miles long, and in the narrowest part of the gulf. The
+northern channel past this island proved too shallow to be a source of
+danger. The southern channel was navigable, and this the czar determined
+to fortify.
+
+A fort was begun in the water near the island's shores, stone being sunk
+for its foundation. Work on it was pressed with the greatest energy, for
+fear of an attack by the Swedish fleet, and it was completed before the
+winter's end. With the idea of making this his commercial port, Peter
+had many stone warehouses built on the island, most of which soon fell
+into decay for want of use. But to-day Cronstadt, as the new town and
+fortress were called, is the greatest naval station and one of the most
+flourishing commercial cities in Russia, while its fortifications
+protect the capital from dangers of assault.
+
+In those early days, however, St. Petersburg was designed to be the
+centre of commerce, and Peter took what means he could to entice
+merchant vessels to his new city. The first to appear--coming almost by
+accident--was of Dutch build. It arrived in November, 1703, and Peter
+himself served as pilot to bring it up to the town. Great was the
+astonishment of the skipper, on being afterwards presented to the czar,
+to recognize in him his late pilot. And Peter's delight was equally
+great on learning that the ship had been freighted by Cornelis Calf, one
+of his old Zaandam friends. The skipper was feasted to his heart's
+content and presented with five hundred ducats, while each sailor
+received thirty thalers, and the ship was renamed the St. Petersburg.
+Two other ships appeared the same year, one Dutch and one English, and
+their skippers and crews received the same reward. These pioneer vessels
+were exempted forever from all tolls and dues at that port.
+
+St. Petersburg, as it exists to-day, bears very little resemblance to
+the city of Peter's plan. To his successors are due the splendid granite
+quays, which aid in keeping out the overflowing stream, the rows of
+palaces, the noble churches and public buildings, the statues, columns,
+and other triumphs of architecture which abundantly adorn the great
+modern capital. The marshy island soil has been lifted by two centuries
+of accretions, while the main city has crept up from its old location to
+the mainland, where the fashionable quarters and the government offices
+now stand.
+
+St. Petersburg is still exposed to yearly peril by overflow. The violent
+autumnal storms, driving the waters of the gulf into the channel of the
+stream, back up terrible floods. The spring-time rise in the lakes which
+feed the Neva threatens similar disaster. In 1721 Peter himself narrowly
+escaped drowning in the Nevski Prospect, now the finest street in
+Europe.
+
+Of the floods that have desolated the city, the greatest was that of
+November, 1824. Driven into the river's mouth by a furious southwest
+storm, the waters of the gulf were heaped up to the first stories of the
+houses even in the highest streets. Horses and carriages were swept
+away; bridges were torn loose and floated off; numbers of houses were
+moved from their foundations; a full regiment of carbineers, who had
+taken refuge on the roof of their barracks, perished in the furious
+torrent. At Cronstadt the waters rose so high that a hundred-gun ship
+was left stranded in the market-place. The czar, who had just returned
+from a long journey to the east, found himself made captive in his own
+palace. Standing on the balcony which looks up the Neva, surrounded by
+his weeping family, he saw with deep dismay wrecks of every kind,
+bridges and merchandise, horses and cattle, and houses peopled with
+helpless inmates, swept before his eyes by the raging flood. Boats were
+overturned and emptied their crews into the stream. Some who escaped
+death by drowning died from the bitter cold as they floated downward on
+vessels or rafts. It seemed almost as if the whole city would be carried
+bodily into the gulf.
+
+The official reports of this disaster state that forty-five hundred of
+the people perished,--probably not half the true figure. Of the houses
+that remained, many were ruined, and thousands of poor wretches wandered
+homeless through the drenched streets. Such was one example of the
+inheritance left by Peter the Great to the dwellers in his favorite
+city, his "window to Europe," as it has been called.
+
+
+
+
+_FROM THE HOVEL TO THE THRONE._
+
+
+The reign of Peter the Great was signalized by two notable instances of
+the rise of persons from the lowest to the highest estate, ability being
+placed above birth and talent preferred to noble descent. A poor boy,
+Mentchikof by name, son of a monastery laborer, had made his way to
+Moscow and there found employment with a pastry-cook, who sent him out
+daily with a basket of mince pies, which he was to sell in the streets.
+The boy was destitute of education, but he had inherited a musical voice
+and a lively manner, which stood him in good stead in proclaiming the
+merits of his wares. He could sing a ballad in taking style, and became
+so widely known for his songs and stories that he was often invited into
+gentlemen's houses to entertain company. His voice and his wit ended in
+making him a prince of the empire, a favorite of the czar, and in the
+end virtually the emperor of Russia.
+
+Being one day in the kitchen of a boyar's house, where dinner was being
+prepared for the czar, who had promised to dine there that day, young
+Mentchikof overheard the master of the house give special directions to
+his cook about a dish of meat of which he said the czar was especially
+fond, and noticed that he furtively dropped a powder of some kind into
+it, as if by way of spice.
+
+This act seemed suspicious to the acute lad. Noting particularly the
+composition of the dish, he betook himself to the street, where he began
+again to exalt the merits of his pies and to entertain the passers-by
+with ballads. He kept in the vicinity of the boyar's house until the
+czar arrived, when he raised his voice to its highest pitch and began to
+sing vociferously. The czar, attracted by the boy's voice and amused by
+his manner, called him up, and asked him if he would sell his stock in
+trade, basket and all.
+
+"I have orders only to sell the pies," replied the shrewd vender: "I
+cannot sell the basket without asking my master's leave. But, as
+everything in Russia belongs to your majesty, you have only to lay on me
+your commands."
+
+This answer so greatly pleased the czar that he bade the boy come with
+him into the house and wait on him at table, much to the young
+pie-vender's joy, as it was just the result for which he had hoped. The
+dinner went on, Mentchikof waiting on the czar with such skill as he
+could command, and watching eagerly for the approach of the suspected
+dish. At length it was brought in and placed on the table before the
+czar. The boy thereupon leaned forward and whispered in the monarch's
+ear, begging him not to eat of that dish.
+
+Surprised at this request, and quick to suspect something wrong, the
+czar rose and walked into an adjoining room, bidding the boy accompany
+him.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked. "Why should I not eat of that particular
+dish?"
+
+"Because I am afraid it is not all right," answered the boy. "I was in
+the kitchen while it was being prepared, and saw the boyar, when the
+cook's back was turned, drop a powder into the dish. I do not know what
+all this meant, but thought it my duty to put your majesty on your
+guard."
+
+"Thanks for your shrewdness, my lad," said the czar; "I will bear it in
+mind."
+
+Peter returned to the table with his wonted cheerfulness of countenance,
+giving no indication that he had heard anything unusual.
+
+"I should like your majesty to try that dish," said the boyar: "I fancy
+that you will find it very good."
+
+"Come sit here beside me," suggested Peter. It was the custom at that
+time in Moscow for the master of a house to wait on the table when he
+entertained guests.
+
+Peter put some of the questionable dish on a plate and placed it before
+his host.
+
+"No doubt it is good," he said. "Try some of it yourself and set me an
+example."
+
+This request threw the host into a state of the utmost confusion, and
+with trembling utterance he replied that it was not becoming for a
+servant to eat with his master.
+
+"It is becoming to a dog, if I wish it," answered Peter, and he set the
+plate on the floor before a dog which was in the room.
+
+In a moment the brute had emptied the dish. But in a short time the
+poor animal was seen to be in convulsions, and it soon fell dead before
+the assembled company.
+
+"Is this the dish you recommended so highly?" said Peter, fixing a
+terrible look on the shrinking boyar. "So I was to take the place of
+that dead dog?"
+
+Orders were given to have the animal opened and examined, and the result
+of the investigation proved beyond doubt that its death was due to
+poison. The culprit, however, escaped the terrible punishment which he
+would have suffered at Peter's hands by taking his own life. He was
+found dead in bed the next morning.
+
+We do not vouch for the truth of this interesting story. Though told by
+a writer of Peter's time, it is doubted by late historians. But such is
+the fate of the best stories afloat, and the voice of doubt threatens to
+rob history of much of its romance. The story of Mentchikof, in its most
+usual shape, states that Le Fort, general and admiral, was the first to
+be attracted to the sprightly boy, and that Peter saw him at Le Fort's
+house, was delighted with him, and made him his page.
+
+The pastry-cook's boy soon became the indispensable companion of the
+czar, assisted him in his workshop, attended him in his wars, and at the
+siege of Azov displayed the greatest bravery. He accompanied Peter in
+his travels, worked with him in Holland, and distinguished himself in
+the wars with the Swedes, receiving the order of St. Andrew for
+gallantry at the battle of the Neva. In 1704 he was given the rank of
+general, and was the first to defeat the Swedes in a pitched battle. At
+the czar's request he was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+As Prince Mentchikof the new grandee loomed high. His house in Moscow
+was magnificent, his banquets were gorgeous with gold and silver plate,
+and the ambassadors of the powers of Europe figured among his guests.
+Such was the bright side of the picture. The dark side was one of
+extortion and robbery, in which the favorite of the czar out-did in
+peculation all the other officials of the realm.
+
+Peculation in Russia, indeed, assumed enormous proportions, but this was
+a crime towards which Peter did not manifest his usual severity. Two of
+the robbers in high places were executed, but the others were let off
+with fines and a castigation with Peter's walking-stick, which he was in
+the habit of using freely on high and low alike. As for Mentchikof, he
+was incorrigible. So high was he in favor with his master that the
+senators, who had abundant proofs of his robberies and little love for
+him personally, dared not openly accuse him before the czar. The most
+they ventured to do was to draw up a statement of his peculations and
+lay the paper on the table at the czar's seat. Peter saw it, ran his eye
+over its contents, but said nothing. Day after day the paper lay in the
+same place, but the czar continued silent. One day as he sat in the
+senate, the senator Tolstoi, who sat beside him, was bold enough to ask
+him what he thought of that document.
+
+"Nothing," Peter replied, "but that Mentchikof will always be
+Mentchikof."
+
+The death of Peter placed the favorite in a precarious position. He had
+a host of enemies, who would have rejoiced in his downfall. These, who
+formed what may be called the Old Russian party, wished to proclaim as
+monarch the grandson of the deceased czar. But Mentchikof and the party
+of reform were beforehand with them, and gave the throne to Catharine,
+the widow of the late monarch. Under her the pastry-cook's boy rose to
+the summit of his power and virtually governed the country. Unluckily
+for the favorite, Catharine died in two years, and a new czar, Peter
+II., grandson of Peter the Great, came to the throne.
+
+Mentchikof had been left guardian of the youthful czar, to whom his
+daughter was betrothed, and whom he took to his house and surrounded
+with his creatures. And now for a time the favorite soared higher than
+ever, was practically lord of the land, and made himself more feared
+than had been Peter himself.
+
+But he had reached the verge of a precipice. There was no love between
+the young czar and Mary Mentchikof, and the youthful prince was soon
+brought to dislike his guardian. Events moved fast. Peter left
+Mentchikof's house and sought the summer palace, to which his guardian
+was refused admittance. Soon after he was arrested, the shock of the
+disgrace bringing on an apoplectic stroke. In vain he appealed to the
+emperor; he was ordered to retire to his estate, and soon after was
+banished, with his whole family, to Siberia. This was in 1727. The
+disgraced favorite survived his exile but two years, dying of apoplexy
+in 1729. Four months afterwards the new czar followed in death the man
+he had disgraced.
+
+The other instance of a rise from low to high estate was that of the
+empress herself, whose career was very closely related to that of
+Mentchikof. There are various instances in history of a woman of low
+estate being chosen to share a monarch's throne, but only one, that of
+Catharine of Russia, in which a poor stranger, taken from among the
+ruins of a plundered town, became eventually the absolute sovereign of
+that empire into which she had been carried as captive or slave.
+
+It was in 1702, during the sharply contested war between Russia and
+Sweden, that, while Charles XII. of Sweden was making conquests in
+Poland, the Russian army was having similar success in Livonia and
+Ingria. Among the Russian successes was the capture of a small town
+named Marienburg, which surrendered at discretion, but whose magazines
+were blown up by the Swedes. This behavior so provoked the Russian
+general that he gave orders for the town to be destroyed and all its
+inhabitants to be carried off.
+
+Among the prisoners was a girl, Catharine by name, a native of Livonia,
+who had been left an orphan at the age of three years, and had been
+brought up as a servant in the family of M. Gluck, the minister of the
+place. Such was the humble origin of the woman who was to become the
+wife of Peter the Great, and afterwards Catharine I., Empress of Russia.
+
+In 1702 Catharine, then seventeen years of age, married a Swedish
+dragoon, one of the garrison of Marienburg. Her married life was a short
+one, her husband being obliged to leave her in two days to join his
+regiment. She never saw him again. She could neither read nor write,
+and, like Mentchikof, never learned those arts. She was, however,
+handsome and attractive, delicate and well formed, and of a most
+excellent temper, being never known to be out of humor, while she was
+obliging and civil to all, and after her exaltation took good care of
+the family of her benefactor Gluck. As for her first husband, she sent
+him sums of money until 1705, when he was killed in battle.
+
+It was a common fate of prisoners of war then to be sold as slaves to
+the Turks, but the beauty of Catharine saved her from this. After some
+vicissitudes, she fell into the hands of Mentchikof, at whose quarters
+she was seen by the czar. Struck by her beauty and good sense, Peter
+took her to his palace, where, finding in her a warm appreciation of his
+plans of reform and an admirable disposition, he made her his own by a
+private marriage. In 1711 this was supplemented by a public wedding.
+
+Catharine was soon able amply to reward the czar for the honor he had
+conferred upon her. He was at war with the Turks, and, through a foolish
+contempt for their generalship and military skill, allowed himself to
+fall into a trap from which there seemed no escape. He found himself
+completely surrounded by the enemy and cut off from all supplies, and
+it seemed as if he would be forced to surrender with his whole force to
+the despised foe.
+
+From this dilemma Catharine, who was in the camp, relieved him.
+Collecting a large sum of money and presents of jewelry, and seeking the
+camp of the enemy, she succeeded in bribing the Turkish general, or in
+some way inducing him to conclude peace and suffer the Russian army to
+escape. Peter repaid his able wife by conferring upon her the dignity of
+empress.
+
+The death of the czar was followed, as we have said, by the elevation of
+his wife to the vacant throne, principally through the aid of
+Mentchikof, her former lord and master, aided by the effect of her
+seemingly inconsolable grief and the judicious distribution of money and
+jewels as presents.
+
+For two years Catharine and Mentchikof, whose life had begun in the
+hovel, and who were now virtually together on the throne, were the
+unquestioned autocrats of Russia. Catharine had no genius for
+government, and left the control of affairs to her minister, who was to
+all intents and purposes sovereign of Russia. The empress, meanwhile,
+passed her days in vice and dissipation, thereby hastening her end. She
+died in 1727, at the age of about forty years. In the same year, as
+already stated, the man who had grown great with her fell from his high
+estate.
+
+
+
+
+_BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT._
+
+
+Amid the serious matters which present themselves so abundantly in the
+history of Russia, buffooneries of the coarsest character at times find
+place. Numerous examples of this might be drawn from the reign of Peter
+the Great, whose idea of humor was broad burlesque, and who, despite the
+religious prejudices of the people, did not hesitate to make the church
+the subject of his jests. One of the broadest of these farces was that
+known as the Conclave, the purpose of which was to burlesque or treat
+with contumely the method of selecting the head of the Roman Catholic
+Church.
+
+At the court of the czar was an old man named Sotof, a drunkard of
+inimitable powers of imbibition, and long a butt for the jests of the
+court. He had taught the czar to write, a service which he deemed worthy
+of being rewarded by the highest dignities of the empire.
+
+Peter, who dearly loved a practical joke, learning the aspirations of
+the old sot, promised to confer on him the most eminent office in the
+world, and accordingly appointed him _Kniaz Papa_ that is, prince-pope,
+with a salary of two thousand roubles and a palace at St. Petersburg.
+The exaltation of Sotof to this dignity was solemnized by a performance
+more gross than ludicrous. Buffoons were chosen to lift the new
+dignitary to his throne, and four fellows who stammered with every word
+delivered absurd addresses upon his exaltation. The mock pope then
+created a number of cardinals, at whose head he rode through the streets
+in procession, his seat of state being a cask of brandy which was
+carried on a sledge drawn by four oxen.
+
+The cardinals followed, and after them came sledges laden with food and
+drink, while the music of the procession consisted of a hideous turmoil
+of drums, trumpets, horns, fiddles, and hautboys, all playing out of
+time, mingled with the ear-splitting clatter of pots and pans vigorously
+beaten by a troop of cooks and scullions. Next came a number of men
+dressed as Roman Catholic monks, each carrying a bottle and a glass. In
+the rear of the procession marched the czar and his courtiers, Peter
+dressed as a Dutch skipper, the others wearing various comic disguises.
+
+The place fixed for the conclave being reached, the cardinals were led
+into a long gallery, along which had been built a range of closets. In
+each of these a cardinal was shut up, abundantly provided with food and
+drink. To each of the cardinals two conclavists were attached, whose
+duty it was to ply them with brandy, carry insulting messages from one
+to another, and induce them, as they grew tipsy, to bawl out all sorts
+of abuse of one another. To all this ribaldry the czar listened with
+delight, taking note at the same time of anything said of which he might
+make future use against the participants.
+
+This orgy lasted three days and three nights, the cardinals not being
+released until they had agreed upon answers to a number of ridiculous
+questions propounded to them by the Kniaz Papa. Then the doors were
+flung open, and the pope and his cardinals were drawn home at mid-day
+dead drunk on sledges,--that is, such of them as survived, for some had
+actually drunk themselves to death, while others never recovered from
+the effect of their debauch.
+
+This offensive absurdity appealed so strongly to the czar's idea of
+humor that he had it three times repeated, it growing more gross and
+shameless on each successive occasion; and during the last conclave
+Peter indulged in such excesses that his death was hastened by their
+effects.
+
+As for the national church of Russia, Peter treated it with contemptuous
+indifference. The office of patriarch becoming vacant, he left it
+unfilled for twenty-one years, and finally, on being implored by a
+delegation from the clergy to appoint a patriarch, he started up in a
+furious passion, struck his breast with his fist and the table with his
+cutlass, and roared out, "Here, here is your patriarch!" He then stamped
+angrily from the room, leaving the prelates in a state of utter dismay.
+
+Soon after he took occasion to make the church the subject of a second
+coarse jest. Another buffoon of the court, Buturlin by name, was
+appointed Kniaz Papa, and a marriage arranged between him and the widow
+of Sotof, his predecessor. The bridegroom was eighty-four years of age,
+the bride nearly as old. Some decrepit old men were chosen to play the
+part of bridesmaids, four stutterers invited the wedding guests, while
+four of the most corpulent fellows who could be found attended the
+procession as running footmen. A sledge drawn by bears held the
+orchestra, their music being accompanied with roars from the animals,
+which were goaded with iron spikes. The nuptial benediction was given in
+the cathedral by a blind and deaf priest, who wore huge spectacles. The
+marriage, the wedding feast, and the remaining ceremonies were all
+conducted in the same spirit of broad burlesque, in which one of the
+sacred ceremonies of the Russian Church was grossly paraphrased.
+
+Peter did not confine himself to coarse jests in his efforts to
+discredit the clergy. He took every occasion to unmask the trickery of
+the priests. Petersburg, the new city he was building, was an object of
+abhorrence to these superstitious worthies, who denounced it as one of
+the gates of hell, prophesying that it would be overthrown by the wrath
+of heaven, and fixing the date on which this was to occur. So great was
+the fear inspired by their prophecies that work was suspended in spite
+of the orders of the terrible czar.
+
+To impress the people with the imminency of the peril, the priests
+displayed a sacred image from whose eyes flowed miraculous tears. It
+seemed to weep over the coming fate of the dwellers within the doomed
+city.
+
+"Its hour is at hand," said the priests; "it will soon be swallowed up,
+with all its inhabitants, by a tremendous inundation."
+
+When word of this seeming miracle and of the consternation which it had
+produced was brought to the czar, he hastened with his usual impetuosity
+to the spot, bent on exposing the dangerous fraud which his enemies were
+perpetrating. He found the weeping image surrounded by a multitude of
+superstitious citizens, who gazed with open-eyed wonder and reverence on
+the miraculous feat.
+
+Their horror was intense when Peter boldly approached and examined the
+image. Petrified with terror, they looked to see him stricken dead by a
+bolt from heaven. But their feelings changed when the czar, breaking
+open the head of the image, explained to them the ingenious trick which
+the priests had devised. The head was found to contain a reservoir of
+congealed oil, which, as it was melted by the heat of lighted tapers
+beneath, flowed out drop by drop through artfully provided holes, and
+ran from the eyes like tears. On seeing this the dismay of the people
+turned to anger against the priests, and the building of the city went
+on.
+
+The court fool was an institution born in barbarism, though it survived
+long into the age of civilization, having its latest survival in Russia,
+the last European state to emerge from barbarism. In the days of Peter
+the Great the fool was a fixed institution in Russia, though this
+element of court life had long vanished from Western Europe. In truth,
+the buffoon flourished in Russia like a green bay-tree. Peter was never
+satisfied with less than a dozen of these fun-making worthies, and a
+private family which could not afford at least one hired fool was
+thought to be in very straitened circumstances.
+
+In the reign of the empress Anne the number of court buffoons was
+reduced to six, but three of the six were men of the highest birth. They
+had been degraded to this office for some fault, and if they refused to
+perform such fooleries as the queen and her courtiers desired they were
+whipped with rods.
+
+Among those who suffered this indignity was no less a grandee than
+Prince Galitzin. He had changed his religion, and for this offence he
+was made court page, though he was over forty years of age, and buffoon,
+though his son was a lieutenant in the army, and his family one of the
+first in the realm. His name is here given in particular as he was made
+the subject of a cruel jest, which could have been perpetrated nowhere
+but in the Russian court at that period.
+
+The winter of 1740, in which this event took place, was of unusual
+severity. Prince Galitzin's wife having died, the empress forced him to
+marry a girl of the lowest birth, agreeing to defray the cost of the
+wedding, which proved to be by no means small.
+
+As a preliminary a house was built wholly of ice, and all its furniture,
+tables, seats, ornaments, and even the nuptial bedstead, were made of
+the same frigid material. In front of the house were placed four cannons
+and two mortars of ice, so solid in construction that they were fired
+several times without bursting. To make up the wedding procession
+persons of all the nations subject to Russia, and of both sexes, were
+brought from the several provinces, dressed in their national costumes.
+
+The procession was an extraordinary one. The new-married couple rode on
+the back of an elephant, in a huge cage. Of those that followed some
+were mounted on camels, some rode in sledges drawn by various beasts,
+such as reindeer, oxen, dogs, goats, and hogs. The train, which all
+Moscow turned out to witness, embraced more than three hundred persons,
+and made its way past the palace of the empress and through all the
+principal streets of the city.
+
+The wedding dinner was given in Biren's riding-house, which was
+appropriately decorated, and in which each group of the guests were
+supplied with food cooked after the manner of their own country. A ball
+followed, in which the people of each nation danced their national
+dances to their national music. The pith of the joke, in the Russian
+appreciation of that day, came at the end, the bride and groom being
+conducted to a bed of ice in an icy palace, in which they were forced to
+spend the night, guards being stationed at the door to prevent their
+getting out before morning.
+
+Though not so gross as Peter's nuptial jests, this was more cruel, and,
+in view of the social station of the groom, a far greater indignity.
+
+A Russian state dinner during the reign of Peter the Great, as described
+by Dr. Birch, speaking from personal observation, was one in which only
+those of the strongest stomach could safely take part. On such
+occasions, indeed, the experienced ate their dinners beforehand at
+home, knowing well what to expect at the czar's table. Ceremony was
+absolutely lacking, and, as two or three hundred persons were usually
+invited to a feast set for a hundred, a most undignified scuffling for
+seats took place, each holder of a chair being forced to struggle with
+those who sought to snatch it from him. In this turmoil distinguished
+foreigners had to fight like the natives for their seats.
+
+Finally they took their places without regard to dignity or station.
+"Carpenters and shipwrights sit next to the czar; but senators,
+ministers, generals, priests, sailors, buffoons of all kinds, sit
+pell-mell, without any distinction." And they were crowded so closely
+that it was with great difficulty they could lift their hands to their
+mouths. As for foreigners, if they happened to sit between Russians,
+they were little likely to have any appetite to eat. All this Peter
+encouraged, on the plea that ceremony would produce uneasiness and
+stiffness.
+
+There was usually but one napkin for two or three guests, which they
+fought for as they had for seats; while each person had but one plate
+during dinner, "so if some Russian does not care to mix the sauces of
+the different dishes together, he pours the soup that is left in his
+plate either into the dish or into his neighbor's plate, or even under
+the table, after which he licks his plate clean with his finger, and,
+last of all, wipes it with the table-cloth."
+
+Liquids seem to have played as important a part as solids at these
+meals, each guest being obliged to begin with a cup of brandy, after
+which great glasses of wine were served, "and betweenwhiles a bumper of
+the strongest English beer, by which mixture of liquors every one of the
+guests is fuddled before the soup is served up." And this was not
+confined to the men, the women being obliged to take their share in the
+liberal potations. As for the music that played in the adjoining room,
+it was utterly drowned in the noise around the table, the uproar being
+occasionally increased by a fighting-bout between two drunken guests,
+which the czar, instead of stopping, witnessed with glee.
+
+We may close with a final quotation from Dr. Birch. "At great
+entertainments it frequently happens that nobody is allowed to go out of
+the room from noon till midnight; hence it is easy to imagine what
+pickle a room must be in that is full of people who drink like beasts,
+and none of whom escape being dead drunk.
+
+"They often tie eight or ten young mice in a string, and hide them under
+green peas, or in such soups as the Russians have the greatest appetites
+to, which sets them a kicking and vomiting in a most beastly manner when
+they come to the bottom and discover the trick. They often bake cats,
+wolves, ravens, and the like in their pastries, and when the company
+have eaten them up, they tell them what they have in their stomachs.
+
+"The present butler is one of the czar's buffoons, to whom he has given
+the name of _Wiaschi_, with this privilege, that if any one calls him by
+that name he has leave to drub him with his wooden sword. If, therefore,
+anybody, by the czar's setting them on, calls out _Wiaschi_, as the
+fellow does not know exactly who it is, he falls to beating them all
+around, beginning with prince Mentchikof and ending with the last of the
+company, without excepting even the ladies, whom he strips of their head
+clothes, as he does the old Russians of their wigs, which he tramples
+upon, on which occasion it is pleasant enough to see the variety of
+their bald pates."
+
+On reading this account of a Russian court entertainment two centuries
+ago, we cannot wonder that after the visit of Peter the Great and his
+suite to London it was suggested that the easiest way to cleanse the
+palace in which they had been entertained might be to set it on fire and
+burn it to the ground.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW A WOMAN DETHRONED A MAN._
+
+
+We have told how one Catharine, of lowly birth and the captive of a
+warlike raid, rose to be Empress of Russia. We have now to tell how a
+second of the same name rose to the same dignity. This one was indeed a
+princess by descent, her birthplace being a little German town. But if
+she began upon a higher level than the former Catharine, she reached a
+higher level still, this insignificant German princess becoming known in
+history as Catharine the Great, and having the high distinction of being
+the only woman to whose name the title Great has ever been attached. We
+may here say, however, that many women have lived to whom it might have
+been more properly applied.
+
+In 1744 this daughter of one of the innumerable German kinglings became
+Grand Duchess of Russia, through marriage with Peter, the coming heir to
+the throne. We may here step from the beaten track of our story to say
+that Russia, at this period of its history, was ruled over by a number
+of empresses, though at no other time have women occupied its throne.
+The line began with Sophia, sister of Peter the Great, who reigned for
+some years as virtual empress. Catharine, the wife of Peter, became
+actual empress, and was followed, with insignificant intervals of male
+rulers, by Anne, Elizabeth, and Catharine the Great. These male rulers
+were Peter II., whose reign was brief, Ivan, an infant, and Peter III.,
+husband of Catharine, who succeeded Elizabeth in 1762. It is with the
+last named that we are concerned.
+
+Peter III., though grandson of Peter the Great, was as weak a man as
+ever sat on a throne; Catharine a woman of unusual energy. For years of
+their married life these two had been enemies. Peter had the misfortune
+to have been born a fool, and folly on the throne is apt to make a sorry
+show. He had, besides, become a drunkard and profligate. The one good
+point about him, in the estimation of many, was his admiration for
+Frederick the Great, since he came to the throne of Russia at the crisis
+of Frederick's career, and saved him from utter ruin by withdrawing the
+Russian army from his opponents.
+
+His folly soon raised up against him two powerful enemies. One of these
+was the army, which did not object, after fighting with the Austrians
+against the Prussians, to turn and fight with the Prussians against the
+Austrians, but did object to the Prussian dress and discipline, which
+Peter insisted upon introducing. It possessed a discipline of its own,
+which it preferred to keep, and bitterly disliked its change of dress.
+The czar even spoke of suppressing the Guards, as his grandfather had
+suppressed the corps of the Strelitz. This was a fatal offence. It made
+this strong force his enemy, while he was utterly lacking in the
+resolution with which Peter the Great had handled rebels in arms.
+
+The other enemy was Catharine, whom he had deserted for an unworthy
+favorite. But her enmity was quiet, and might have remained so had he
+not added insult to injury. Heated by drink, he called her a "fool" at a
+public dinner before four hundred people, including the greatest
+dignitaries of the realm and the foreign ministers. He was not satisfied
+with an insult, but added to it the folly of a threat, that of an order
+for her arrest. This he withdrew,--a worse fault, under the
+circumstances, than to have made it. He had taught Catharine that her
+only safety lay in action, if she would not be removed from the throne
+in favor of the worthless creature who had supplanted her in her
+husband's esteem.
+
+Events moved rapidly. It was on the 21st of June, 1762, that the insult
+was given and the threat made. Within a month the czar was dead and his
+wife reigned in his stead. On the 24th Peter left St. Petersburg for
+Oranienbaum, his summer residence. He did not propose to remain there
+long. He had it in view to join his army and defeat the Danes, his
+present foes, with the less defined intention of gaining glory on some
+great battle-field at the side of his victorious ally Frederick the
+Great. The fleet with which Denmark was to be invaded was not ready to
+sail, many of the crew being sick; but this little difficulty did not
+deter the czar. He issued an imperial ukase ordering the sick sailors to
+get well.
+
+On going to his summer residence Peter had imprudently left Catharine at
+St. Petersburg, taking his mistress in her stead. On the 29th his wife
+received orders from him to go to Peterhof. Thither he meant to proceed
+before setting out on his campaign. His feast-day came on the 10th of
+July. On the morning of the 9th he set out with a large train of
+followers for the palace of Peterhof, where the next day Catharine was
+to give a grand dinner in his honor.
+
+It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Peterhof was reached. To the
+utter surprise of the czar, there were none but servants to meet him,
+and they in a state of mortal terror.
+
+"Where is the empress?" he demanded.
+
+"Gone."
+
+"Where?"
+
+No one could tell him. She had simply gone,--where and why he was soon
+to learn. As he waited and fumed, a peasant approached and handed him a
+letter, which proved to be from Bressau, his former French valet. It
+contained the astounding information that the empress had arrived in St.
+Petersburg that morning and had been proclaimed _sole and absolute
+sovereign of Russia_.
+
+The tale was beyond his powers of belief. Like a madman he rushed
+through the empty rooms, making them resound with vociferous demands for
+his wife; looked in every corner and cupboard; rushed wildly through the
+gardens, calling for Catharine again and again; while the crowd of
+frightened courtiers followed in his steps. It was in vain; no voice
+came in answer to his demand, no Catharine was to be found.
+
+The story of what had actually happened is none too well known. It has
+been told in more shapes than one. What we know is that there was a
+conspiracy to place Catharine on the throne, that the leaders of the
+troops had been tampered with, and that one of the conspirators, Captain
+Passek, had just been arrested by order of the czar. It was this arrest
+that precipitated the revolution. Fearing that all was discovered, the
+plotters took the only available means to save themselves.
+
+The arrest of Passek had nothing to do with the conspiracy. It was for
+quite another cause. But it proved to be an accident with great results,
+since the Orlofs, who were deep in the conspiracy, thought that their
+lives were in danger, and that safety lay only in prompt action. As a
+result, at five A.M.. on July 9, Alexis Orlof suddenly appeared at
+Peterhof, and demanded to see the empress at once.
+
+Catharine was fast asleep when the young officer hastily entered her
+room. He lost no time in waking her. She gazed on him with surprise and
+alarm.
+
+"It is time to get up," he said, in as calm a tone as if he had been
+announcing that breakfast was waiting. "Everything is ready for your
+proclamation."
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"Passek is arrested. You must come," he said, in the same tone.
+
+This was enough. A long perspective of peril lay behind those words. The
+empress arose, dressed in all haste, and sprang into the coach beside
+which Orlof awaited her. One of her women entered with her, Orlof seated
+himself in front, a groom sprang up behind, and off they set, at
+headlong speed, for St. Petersburg.
+
+The distance was nearly twenty miles, and the horses, which had already
+covered that distance, were in very poor condition for doubling it
+without rest. In his haste Orlof had not thought of ordering a relay.
+His carelessness might have cost them dear, since it was of vital moment
+to reach the city without delay. Fortunately, they met a peasant, and
+borrowed two horses from his cart. Those two horses perhaps won the
+throne for Catharine.
+
+[Illustration: A RUSSIAN DROSKY.]
+
+Five miles from the city they met two others of the conspirators,
+devoured with anxiety. Changing to the new coach, the party drove in at
+breakneck pace, and halted before the barracks of the Ismailofsky
+regiment, with which the conspirators had been at work.
+
+It was between six and seven o'clock in the morning. Only a dozen men
+were at the barracks. Nothing had been prepared. Excitement or terror
+had turned all heads. Yet now no time was lost. Drummers were roused and
+drums beaten. Out came soldiers in haste, half dressed and half asleep.
+
+"Shout 'Long live the empress!'" demanded the visitors.
+
+Without hesitation the guardsmen obeyed, their only thought at the
+moment being that of a free flow of _vodka_, the Russian drink. A priest
+was quickly brought, who, like the soldiers, was prepared to do as he
+was told. Raising the cross, he hastily offered them a form of oath, to
+which the soldiers subscribed. The first step was taken; the empress was
+proclaimed.
+
+The proclamation declared Catharine sole and absolute sovereign. It made
+no mention of her little son Paul, as some of the leaders in the
+conspiracy had proposed. The Orlofs controlled the situation, and the
+action of the Ismailofsky was soon sanctioned by other regiments of the
+guard. They hated the czar and were ripe for revolt.
+
+One regiment only, the Preobrajensky, that of which the czar himself was
+colonel, resisted. It was led against the other troops under the command
+of a captain and a major. The hostile bodies came face to face a few
+paces apart; the queen's party greatest in number, but in disorder, the
+czar's party drawn up with military skill. A moment, a word, might
+precipitate a bloody conflict.
+
+Suddenly a man in the ranks cried out, "_Oura!_ Long live the empress!"
+In an instant the whole regiment echoed the cry, the ranks were broken,
+the soldiers embraced their comrades in the other ranks, and, falling on
+their knees, begged pardon of the empress for their delay.
+
+And now the throng turned towards the neighboring church of Our Lady of
+Kasan, in which Catharine was to receive their oaths of fidelity. A
+crowd pushed in to do homage, composed not only of soldiers, but of
+members of the senate and the synod. A manifesto was quickly drawn up by
+a clerk named Tieplof, printed in all haste, and distributed to the
+people, who read it and joined heartily in the cry of "Long live the
+empress!"
+
+Catharine next reviewed the troops, who again hailed her with shouts.
+And thus it was that a czar was dethroned and a new reign begun without
+the loss of a drop of blood. There was some little disorder. Several
+wine-shops were broken into, the house of Prince George of Holstein was
+pillaged and he and his wife were roughly handled, but that was all: as
+yet it had been one of the simplest of revolutions.
+
+Catharine was empress, but how long would she remain so? Her empire
+consisted of the fickle people of St. Petersburg, her army of four
+regiments of the guards. If Peter had the courage to strike for his
+throne, he might readily regain it. He had with him about fifteen
+hundred Holsteiners, an excellent body of troops, on whose loyalty he
+could fully rely, for they were foreigners in Russia, and their safety
+depended on him. At the head of these troops was one of the first
+soldiers of the age, Field-Marshal Münich. The main Russian army was in
+Pomerania, under the orders of the czar, if he were alert in giving
+them. He had it in view to annihilate the Danes, to show himself a hero
+under Frederick of Prussia; surely a handful of conspirators and a few
+regiments of malcontents would have but a shallow chance.
+
+Yet Catharine knew the man with whom she dealt. The grain of courage
+which would have saved Peter was not to be found in his make-up, and
+Münich strove in vain to induce him to act with manly resolution. A
+dozen fancies passed through his mind in an hour. He drew up manifestoes
+for a paper campaign. He sent to Oranienbaum for the Holstein troops,
+intending to fortify Peterhof, but changed his mind before they arrived.
+
+Münich now advised him to go to Cronstadt and secure himself in that
+stronghold. After some hesitation he agreed, but night had fallen
+before the whole party, male and female, set off in a yacht and galley,
+as if on a pleasure-trip. It was one o'clock in the morning when they
+arrived in sight of the fortress.
+
+"Who goes there?" hailed a sentinel from the ramparts.
+
+"The emperor."
+
+"There is no emperor. Keep off!"
+
+Delay had given Catharine ample time to get ahead of him.
+
+"Do not heed the sentry," cried Münich. "They will not dare to fire on
+you. Land, and all will be safe."
+
+But Peter was below deck, in a panic of fear. The women were shrieking
+in terror. Despite Münich, the vessels were put about. Then the old
+soldier, half in despair at this poltroonery, proposed another plan.
+
+"Let us go to Revel, embark on a war-ship, and proceed to Pomerania.
+There you can take command of the army. Do this, sire, and within six
+weeks St. Petersburg and Russia will be at your feet. I will answer for
+this with my head."
+
+But Peter was hopelessly incompetent to act. He would go back to
+Oranienbaum. He would negotiate. He arrived there to learn that
+Catharine was marching on him at the head of her regiments. On she came,
+her cap crowned with oak leaves, her hair floating in the wind. The
+soldiers had thrown off their Prussian uniforms and were dressed in
+their old garb. They were eager to fight the Holstein foreigners.
+
+No opportunity came for this. A messenger met them with a flag of
+truce. Peter had sent an offer to divide the power with Catharine.
+Receiving no answer, in an hour he sent an offer to abdicate. He was
+brought to Peterhof, where Catharine had halted, and where he cried like
+a whipped child on receiving the orders of the new empress and being
+forcibly separated from the woman who had ruined him.
+
+A day had changed the fate of an empire. Within little more than six
+months from his accession the czar had been hurled from his throne and
+his wife had taken his place. Peter was sent under guard to Ropcha, a
+lonely spot about twenty miles away, there to stay until accommodations
+could be prepared for him in the strong fortress of Schlüsselburg.
+
+He was never to reach the latter place. He had abdicated on July 14. On
+July 18 Alexis Orlof, covered with sweat and dust, burst into the
+dressing-room of the empress. He had a startling story to tell. He had
+ridden full speed from Ropcha with the news of the death of Peter III.
+
+The story was that the czar had been found dead in his room. That was
+doubtless the case, but that he had been murdered no one had a shadow of
+doubt. Yet no one knew, and no one knows to this day, just what had
+taken place. Stories of his having been poisoned and strangled have been
+told, not without warrant. A detailed account is given of poison being
+forced upon him by the Orlofs, who are said to have, on the poison
+failing to act, strangled him in a revolting manner by their own hands.
+Though this story lacks proof, the body was quite black. "Blood oozed
+through the pores, and even through the gloves which covered the hands."
+Those who kissed the corpse came away with swollen lips.
+
+That Peter was murdered is almost certain; but that Catharine had
+anything to do with it is not so sure. It may have been done by the
+conspirators to prevent any reversal of the revolution. Prison-walls
+have hidden many a dark event; and we only know that the czar was dead
+and Catharine on the throne.
+
+
+
+
+_A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE._
+
+
+While the armies of Catharine II. were threatening with destruction the
+empire of Turkey, and her diplomats were deciding what part of
+dismembered Poland should fall to her share, her throne itself was put
+in danger of destruction by an aspirant who arose in the east and for
+two years kept Russia from end to end in a state of dire alarm. The
+summary manner in which Peter III. had been removed from the throne was
+not relished by the people. Numerous small revolts broke out, which were
+successively put down. St. Petersburg accepted Catharine, but Moscow did
+not, and on her visits to the latter city the political atmosphere
+proved so frigid that she was glad to get back to the more genial
+climate of the city on the Neva.
+
+Years passed before Russia settled down to full acceptance of a reign
+begun in violence and sustained by force, and in this interval there
+were no fewer than six impostors to be dealt with, each of whom claimed
+to be Peter III. Murdered emperors sleep badly in their graves. The
+example of the false Dmitris, generations before, remained in men's
+minds, and it seemed as if every Russian who bore a resemblance to the
+vanished czar was ready to claim his vacated seat.
+
+Of these false Peters, the sixth and most dangerous was a Cossack of
+the Don, whose actual name was Pugatchef, but whose face seemed capable
+of calling up an army wherever it appeared, and who, if his ability had
+been equal to his fortune, might easily have seated himself on the
+throne. The impostor proved to be his own worst foe, and defeated
+himself by his innate barbarity.
+
+Pugatchef began his career as a common soldier, afterwards becoming an
+officer. Deserting the army after a period of service, he made his way
+to Poland, where he dwelt with the monks of that country and pretended
+to equal the best of them in piety. Here he was told that he bore a
+striking resemblance to Peter III. The hint was enough. He returned to
+Russia, where he professed sanctity, dressed like a patriarch of the
+church, and scattered benedictions freely among the Cossacks of the Don.
+He soon gained adherents among the old orthodox party, who were bitter
+against the religious looseness of the court. Finally he gave himself
+out as Peter III., declaring that the story of his death was false, that
+he had escaped from the hands of the assassins, and that he desired to
+win the throne, not for himself, but for his infant son Paul.
+
+The first result of this announcement was that the impostor was seized
+and taken to Kasan as a prisoner. But the carelessness of his guards
+allowed him to escape from his prison cell, and he made his way to the
+Volga, near its entrance into the Caspian Sea, where he began to collect
+a body of followers among the Cossacks of that region. His first open
+declaration was made on September 17, 1773, when he appeared with three
+hundred Cossacks at the town of Yaitsk, and published an appeal to
+orthodox believers, declaring that he was the czar Peter III. and
+calling upon them for support.
+
+His handful of Cossacks soon grew into an army, multitudes of the
+tribesmen gathered around him, and in a brief time he found himself at
+the head of a large body of the lowest of the people. The man was a
+savage at heart, betraying his innate depravity by foolish and useless
+cruelties, and in this way preventing the more educated class of the
+community from joining his ranks.
+
+Yet he contrived to gather about him an army of several thousand men,
+and obtained a considerable number of cannon, with which he soon
+afterwards laid siege to the city of Orenburg. Both Yaitsk and Orenburg
+defied his efforts, but he had greater success in the field, defeating
+two armies in succession. These victories gave him new assurance. He now
+caused money to be coined in his name, as though he were the lawful
+emperor, and marched northward at the head of a large force to meet the
+armies of the state.
+
+His army was destitute of order or discipline and he woefully deficient
+in military skill, yet his proclamation of freedom to the people, and
+the opportunities he gave them for plunder and outrage, strengthened his
+hands, and recruits came in multitudes. The Tartars, Kirghis, and
+Bashkirs, who had been brought against their will under the Russian
+yoke, flocked to his standard, in the hope of regaining their freedom.
+Many of the Poles who had been banished from their country also sought
+his ranks, and the people of Moscow and its vicinity, who had from the
+first been opposed to Catharine's reign, waited his approach that they
+might break out in open rebellion.
+
+The outbreak had thus become serious, and had Pugatchef been skilled as
+a leader he might have won the throne. As it was, his followers showed a
+fiery valor, and, undisciplined as they were, gave the armies of the
+empire no small concern. Bibikof, who had been sent to subdue them,
+failed through over-caution, and was slain in the field. His
+lieutenants, Galitzin and Michelson, proved more active, and frequently
+defeated the impostor, though only to find him rising again with new
+armies as often as the old ones were crushed, like the fabulous giant
+who sprang up in double form whenever cut in twain.
+
+Prince Galitzin defeated him twice, the last time after a furious battle
+six hours in length. Pugatchef, abandoned by his followers, now fled to
+the Urals, but soon appeared again with a fresh body of troops. Between
+the beginning of March and the end of May, 1774, the rebel chief was
+defeated six or seven times by Michelson, in the end being driven as a
+fugitive to the Ural Mountains. But he had only to raise his standard
+again for fresh armies to spring up as if from the ground, and early
+June found him once more in the field. Defeated on June 4, he fled once
+more to the hills, but in the beginning of July was facing his foes
+again at the head of twenty-two thousand men.
+
+Only the cruelty shown by himself and his followers, and his
+ruthlessness in permitting the plunder and burning of churches and
+convents, kept back the much greater hosts who would otherwise have
+flocked to his ranks. And at this critical moment in his career he
+committed the signal error of failing to march on Moscow, the principal
+seat of the old Russian faith which he proposed to restore, and where he
+would have found an army of partisans. He marched upon Kasan instead,
+took the city, but failed to capture the citadel. Here he was making
+havoc with fire and sword, when Michelson came up and defeated him in a
+long and obstinate fight.
+
+[Illustration: THE CITY OF KASAN.]
+
+He now fled to the Volga, wasting the land as he went, burning the crops
+and villages, and leaving desolation in his track. Men came in numbers
+to replace those he had lost, and an army of twenty thousand was soon
+again under his command. With these he surprised and routed a Russian
+force and took several forts on the Volga, while the German colonies of
+Moravians which had been established upon that stream, and were among
+the most industrious inhabitants of the empire, suffered severely at his
+hands. In the town of Saratof he murdered all whom he met.
+
+As an example of the character of this monster in human form, it is
+related that hearing that an astronomer from the Imperial Academy of
+Sciences of St. Petersburg was near by, engaged in laying out the route
+of a canal from the Volga to the Don, he ordered him to be brought
+before him. When the peaceful astronomer appeared, the brutal ruffian
+bade his men to lift him on their pikes "so that he might be nearer the
+stars." Then he ordered him to be cut to pieces.
+
+The end of this carnival of murder came at the siege of Zaritzin. Here
+Michelson came up on the 22d of August and forced him to raise the
+siege. On the 24th the insurgents were attacked when in the intricate
+passes of the mountains and encumbered with baggage-wagons, women, and
+camp-followers. Though thus taken at a disadvantage, they defended
+themselves vigorously, the mass of them falling in the mountain passes
+or being driven over the cliffs and precipices. Pugatchef continued to
+fight till his army was destroyed, then made his escape, as so often
+before, swimming the Volga and vanishing in the desert. Only about sixty
+of his most faithful partisans accompanied him in his flight.
+
+Michelson, failing to reach him in his retreat, took care that he should
+not emerge into the cultivated districts. But in the end the Russians
+were able to capture him only by treachery. They won over some of their
+Cossack prisoners, among them Antizof, the nearest friend of the
+fugitive. These were then set free, and sought the desert retreat of
+their late leader, where they awaited an opportunity to take him by
+surprise.
+
+This they were not able to do until November. Pugatchef was gnawing the
+bone of a horse for food when his false friends ran up to him, saying,
+"Come, you have long enough been emperor."
+
+Perceiving that treachery was intended, he drew his pistol and fired at
+his foes, shattering the arm of the foremost. The others seized and
+bound him and conveyed him to Goroduk in the Ural, the locality of
+Antizof's tribe. Michelson was still seeking him in the desert when word
+came to him that the fugitive had been delivered into Russian hands at
+Simbirsk, and was being conveyed to Moscow in an iron cage, like the
+beast of prey which he resembled in character.
+
+On the way he sought to starve himself, but was forced to eat by the
+soldiers. On reaching Moscow he counterfeited madness. His trial was
+conducted without the torture which had formerly been so common a
+feature of Russian tribunals. The sentence of the court was that he
+should be exhibited to the people with his hands and feet cut off, and
+then quartered alive. With unyielding resolution Pugatchef awaited this
+cruel death, but the sentence, for some reason, was not executed, he
+being first beheaded and then quartered. Four of his principal followers
+suffered the same fate, and thus ended one of the most determined
+efforts on the part of an impostor to seize the Russian throne that had
+ever been known. The undoubted courage of the man was enough to prove
+that he was not Peter III. Had he combined military capacity with his
+daring he could readily have won the throne.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS._
+
+
+On the 5th of January, 1771, began one of the most remarkable events in
+the history of the world, the migration of an entire nation, more than
+half a million strong, with its women and children, flocks and herds,
+and all that it possessed, to a new home four thousand miles away. More
+than once--many times, apparently--in the history of the past such
+migrations have taken place. But those were warlike movements, with
+conquest as their aim. This was a peaceful migration, the only desire of
+those concerned being to be let alone. This desire was not granted, and
+death and terror marked every step of their frightful journey.
+
+A century and a half earlier the fathers of these people, the Kalmuck
+Tartars, had left their homes in the Chinese empire and wandered west,
+finding a resting-place at last on the Volga River, in the Russian
+realm. Here they would have been well content to remain but for the arts
+and designs of one man, Zebek-Dorchi by name, who, ambitious to be made
+khan of the tribe, and not being favored in his desires by the Russian
+court, determined to remove the whole Kalmuck nation beyond the reach of
+Russian control.
+
+This was no easy matter to do. Russia had spread to the east until the
+whole width of Asia lay within its broad expanse and its boundary
+touched the Pacific waves. To reach China, the mighty Mongolian plain
+had to be crossed, largely a desert, swarming with hostile tribes; death
+and disaster were likely to haunt every mile of the way; and a general
+tomb in the wilderness, rather than a home in a new land, was the most
+probable destiny of the migrating horde.
+
+Zebek-Dorchi was confronted with a difficult task. He had to induce the
+tribesmen to consent to the new movement, and that so quickly that a
+start could be made before the Russians became aware of the scheme.
+Otherwise the path would be lined with armies and the movement checked.
+
+Oubacha, the khan of the Kalmucks, was a brave but weak man. The
+conspirator controlled him, and through him the people. On a fixed day,
+through a false alarm that the Kirghises and Bashkirs had made an inroad
+upon the Kalmuck lands, he succeeded in gathering a great Kalmuck horde,
+eighty thousand in all, at a point out of reach of Russian ears. Here,
+with subtle eloquence, he told them of the oppressions of Russia, of her
+insults to the Kalmucks, her contempt for their religion, and her design
+to reduce them to slavery, and declared that a plan had been devised to
+rob them of their eldest sons. By a skilful mixture of truth and
+falsehood he roused their fears and their anger, and at length he
+proposed that they should leave their fields and make a rapid march to
+the Temba or some other great river, from behind which they could speak
+in bolder language to the Russian empress and claim better terms. He
+did not venture as yet to hint at his startling plan of a migration to
+far-off China.
+
+The simple minded Tartars, made furious by his skilful oratory, accepted
+his plan by acclamation, and returned home to push with the utmost haste
+the preparations for their stupendous task. The idea of a migration _en
+masse_ did not frighten them. They were nomads and the descendants of
+nomads, who for ages had been used to fold their tents and flit away.
+
+The Kalmuck villages extended on both sides of the Volga. A large
+section of the horde would have to cross that great stream, and this
+could be done with sufficient speed only when its surface was bridged
+with ice. For this reason midwinter was chosen for the flight, despite
+the sufferings which must arise from the bitter Russian cold, and the
+5th of January was appointed for religious reasons by the leading Lama
+of the tribe. The year had been selected by the Great Lama of Thibet,
+the head of the Buddhist faith, to which the Kalmucks belonged, and to
+whom the conspirator had appealed.
+
+Despite the secrecy and rapidity of the movement, tidings of it reached
+the Russian court. But the Russian envoy who dwelt among the Kalmucks
+was quite deceived by their wiles, and sent word to the imperial court
+that the rumors were false and nothing resembling an outbreak was in
+view. The governor of Astrachan, a man of more sense and discernment,
+sent courier after courier, but his warnings were ignored, and the fatal
+5th of January came without a preventive step being taken by the
+government. Then the governor, learning that the migration had actually
+begun, sprang into his sleigh and drove over the Russian snows at the
+furious speed of three hundred miles a day, finally rushing into the
+imperial presence-chamber at St. Petersburg to announce to the empress
+that all his warnings had been true and that the Kalmucks were in full
+flight. Other couriers quickly confirmed his words, and the envoy paid
+for his blindness by death in a dungeon-cell.
+
+Meanwhile the banks of the Volga had been the locality of a remarkable
+event. At early dawn of the selected day the Kalmucks east of the stream
+began to assemble in troops and squadrons, gathering in tens of
+thousands, a great body of the tribe setting out every half-hour on its
+march. Women and children, several hundred thousand in number, were
+placed on wagons and camels, and moved off in masses of twenty thousand
+at once, with escorts of mounted men. As the march proceeded, outlying
+bodies of the horde kept falling in during that and the following day.
+
+From sixty to eighty thousand of the best mounted warriors stayed behind
+for work of ruin and revenge. Their first purpose was to destroy their
+own dwellings, lest some of the weak-minded might be tempted to return.
+Oubacha, the khan, set the example by applying the torch to his own
+palace. Before the day was over the villages throughout a district of
+ten thousand square miles were in a simultaneous blaze. Nothing was
+saved except the portable utensils and such of the wood-work as might be
+used in making the long Tartar lances.
+
+This was but part of the destruction proposed. Zebek-Dorchi had it in
+view to pillage and destroy all the Russian towns, churches, and
+buildings of every kind within the surrounding district, with outrage
+and death to their inhabitants,--a frightful scheme, which was
+providentially checked. The day of flight had been selected, as has been
+said, in the worst season of the year, in order that the tribes west of
+the Volga might be able to cross its surface on a thick bridge of ice.
+Yet for some reason--possibly because of the weakness of the ice--the
+western Kalmucks failed to join their eastern brethren, and fully one
+hundred thousand of the Tartars were left behind. It was this that saved
+the Russian towns, it being feared by the leaders that such a vengeance
+would be repaid upon their brethren left to Russian reprisal. These
+western Kalmucks little guessed what horrors they were escaping by being
+prevented from joining in the flight.
+
+The migrating horde was not less than six hundred thousand strong, while
+a vast number of horses, camels, cattle, goats, and sheep added to the
+multitude of living forms. The march was a forced one. Every day gained
+was of prime importance, for it was well known that Russian armies would
+soon be in hot pursuit, while the tribes on their line of march,
+hereditary foes of the Kalmucks, would gather from all sides to oppose
+their passage as the news of the flight reached their ears.
+
+The river Jaik, three hundred miles away, must be reached before a day's
+rest could be had. The weather was not severely cold, and the journey
+might have been accomplished with little distress but for the forced
+pace. As it was, the cattle suffered greatly, the sheep died in
+multitudes, milk began to fail, and only the great number of camels
+saved the children and the infirm.
+
+The first of the subjects of Russia with whom the Kalmucks came into
+collision were the Cossacks of the Jaik. At this season most of these
+were absent at the fisheries on the Caspian, and the others fled in
+crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was quickly summoned to
+surrender by the Kalmuck khan. The Russian commandant, numerous as were
+his foes, refused, knowing that they must soon resume their flight. He
+had not long to wait. On the fifth day of the siege, from the walls of
+the fort a number of Tartar couriers, mounted on the swift Bactrian
+camels, were seen to cross the plains and ride into the Kalmuck camp at
+their highest speed.
+
+Immediately a great agitation was visible in the camp, the siege was
+raised, and the signal for flight resounded through the host. The news
+brought was that an entire Kalmuck division, numbering nine thousand
+fighting-men, stationed on a distant flank of the line of march, and
+between whom and the Cossacks there was an ancient feud, had been
+attacked and virtually exterminated. The exhaustion of their horses and
+camels had prevented flight, quarter was not asked or given, and the
+battle continued until not a fighting-man was left alive.
+
+The utmost speed was now necessary, for a sufficient reason. The next
+safe halting-place of the Kalmucks was on the east bank of the Toorgaï
+River. Between it and them rose a hilly country, a narrow defile through
+which offered the nearest and best route. This lost, the need of
+pasturage would require a further sweep of five hundred miles. The
+Cossack light horsemen were only about fifty miles more distant from the
+pass. If it were to be won, the most rapid march possible must be made.
+
+For a day and a night the flight went on, with renewed suffering and
+loss of animals. Then a snowfall, soon too deep to journey through,
+checked all progress, and for ten days they had a season of rest,
+comfort, and plenty. The cows and oxen had perished in such numbers that
+it was resolved to slaughter what remained, feast to their hearts'
+content, and salt the remainder for future stores.
+
+At length clear, frosty weather came: the snow ceased to drift, and its
+surface froze. It would bear the camels, and the flight was resumed. But
+already seventy thousand persons of all ages had perished, in addition
+to those slain in battle, and new suffering and death impended, for word
+came that the troops of the empire were converging from all parts of
+Central Asia upon the fords of the Toorgaï, as the best place to cut off
+the flight of the tribes, while a powerful army was marching rapidly
+upon their rear, though delayed by its artillery.
+
+On the 2d of February Ouchim, the much-desired defile, was reached. The
+Cossacks had been out-marched. A considerable body of them, it is true,
+had reached the pass some hours before, but they were attacked and so
+fiercely dealt with that few of them escaped. The Kalmucks here
+obtained revenge for the slaughter of their fellows twenty days before.
+
+The road was now open. How long it would continue open was in doubt.
+Word came that a large Russian army, led by General Traubenberg, was
+advancing upon the Toorgaï. He was to be met on his route by ten
+thousand Bashkirs and as many Kirghises, implacable enemies of the
+Kalmucks, from whom they had suffered in past years. The only hope now
+lay in speed, and onward the Kalmucks pressed, their line of march
+marked by the bodies of the dead. The weak, the sick, had to be left
+behind; nothing was suffered to impede the rapidity of their flight.
+
+From the starting-point on the Volga to the halting-ground on the
+Toorgaï, counting the circuits that had to be made, was full two
+thousand miles, much of it traversed in the dead of winter, the cold,
+for seven weeks of the journey, being excessively severe. Napoleon's
+army in its retreat from Moscow suffered no more from the winter chill
+than did this migrating nation. On many a morning the dawning light
+shone on a circle that had gathered the night before around a sparse
+fire (made from the lading of the camels or from broken-up
+baggage-wagons), now dead and frozen stiff as they sat.
+
+But at length the snows ceased to fall, the frost to chill. Spring came.
+March and April passed away. May arrived with its balmy airs. Vernal
+sights and sounds cheered them on every side. During all these months
+they continued their march, and towards the end of May the Toorgaï was
+reached and crossed, and the weary wanderers, having left their enemies
+far in the rear, hoped to find comfort and security during weeks of
+rest, and to complete their journey with less of ruin and suffering.
+They little dreamed that the worst of their task had yet to be endured.
+
+During the five months of their wanderings their losses had been
+frightfully severe. Not less than two hundred and fifty thousand members
+of the horde had perished, while their herds and flocks--oxen, cows,
+sheep, goats, horses, mules, and asses--had perished, only the camels
+surviving. These hardy creatures had come through the terrible journey
+unharmed, and on them rested all their hopes for the remainder of their
+flight.
+
+But another two thousand miles lay before them, with hostility in front
+and in rear. Should they still go on, or should they return and throw
+themselves on the mercy of the empress? Oubacha, the khan, advised
+return, offering to take all the guilt of the flight upon himself.
+Zebek-Dorchi earnestly urged them to proceed, and not lose the fruit of
+all their suffering. But the people, worn out with the hardships and
+perils of their route, favored a return and a trust in the imperial
+mercy, and this would probably have been determined upon but for an
+untoward event.
+
+This was the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg, the Russian
+general, who, after a long and painful march, had approached within a
+few days' journey of the fugitives about the 1st of June. On his way he
+had been joined by large bodies of the Kirghis and Bashkir nomads. The
+harsh tone and peremptory demands of the envoys aroused hostile feelings
+among the Kalmuck chiefs. But the main check to negotiations was the
+action of the Bashkirs, who, finding that Traubenberg would not advance,
+left his camp in a body and set off for the Kalmuck halting-place.
+
+In six days they reached the Toorgaï, swam their horses across it, and
+fell in fury upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed over leagues of
+ground in search of pasture and food. Peace at once changed to war. Over
+a field from thirty to forty miles wide, fighting, flight and pursuit,
+rescue and death, went on at all points. More than once were the khan
+and Zebek-Dorchi in peril of death. At one time both were made
+prisoners. But at length, concentrating their strength, they forced the
+Bashkirs to retreat. For two days more the wild Bashkir and Kirghis
+cavalry continued their attacks, and the Kalmuck chiefs, looking upon
+these as the advance parties of the Russian army, felt themselves
+obliged to order a renewal of the flight. Thus suddenly ended their
+hoped-for season of repose.
+
+One event took place during this period of which it is important to
+speak. A Russian gentleman, Weseloff by name, was held prisoner in the
+Kalmuck camp, and had been brought that far on their route. The khan
+Oubacha, who saw no object in holding him, now gave him leave to attempt
+his escape, and also asked him to accompany him during a private
+interview which he was to hold on the next night with the hetman of the
+Bashkirs. Weseloff declined to do so, and bade the khan to beware, as
+he feared the scheme meant treachery.
+
+About ten that night Weseloff, with three Kalmucks who had offered to
+join in his flight, they having strong reasons for a return to Russia,
+sought a number of the half-wild horses of that district which they had
+caught and hidden in the thickets on the river's side. They were in the
+act of mounting, when the silence of the night was broken by a sudden
+clash of arms, and a voice, which sounded like that of the khan, was
+heard calling for aid.
+
+The Russian, remembering what Oubacha had told him, rode off hastily
+towards the sound, bidding his companions follow. Reaching an open glade
+in the wood, he saw four men fighting with nine or ten, one, who looked
+like the khan, contending on foot against two horsemen. Weseloff fired
+at once, bringing down one of the assailants. His companions followed
+with their fire, and then all rode into the glade, whereupon the
+assailants, thinking that a troop of cavalry was upon them, hastily
+fled. The dead man, when examined, proved to be a confidential servant
+of Zebek-Dorchi. The secret was out: this ambitious conspirator had
+sought the murder of the khan.
+
+Accompanying the khan until he had reached a place of safety, Weseloff
+and his companions, at the suggestion of the grateful Oubacha, rode off
+at the utmost speed, fearing pursuit. Their return was made along the
+route the Kalmucks had traversed, every step of which could be traced by
+skeletons and other memorials of the flight. Among these were heaps of
+money which had been abandoned in the desert, and of which they took as
+much as they could conveniently carry. Weseloff at length reached home,
+rushed precipitately into the house where his loving mother had long
+mourned his loss, and so shocked her by the sudden revulsion of joy
+after her long sorrow that she fell dead on the spot. It was a sad
+ending to his happy return.
+
+To return to the Kalmuck flight. Two thousand miles still remained to be
+traversed before the borders of China would be reached. All that took
+place in the dreary interval is too much to tell. It must suffice to say
+that the Bashkirs pursued them through the whole long route, while the
+choice of two evils lay in front. Now they made their way through desert
+regions. Now, pressed by want of food, they traversed rich and inhabited
+lands, through which they had to win a passage with the sword. Every day
+the Bashkirs attacked them, drawing off into the desert when too sharply
+resisted. Thus, with endless alternations of hunger and bloodshed, the
+borders of China at length were approached.
+
+And now we have another scene in this remarkable drama to describe. Keen
+Lung, the emperor of China, had been long apprised of the flight of the
+Kalmucks, and had prepared a place of residence for these erring
+children of his nation, as he considered them, on their return to their
+native land. But he did not expect their arrival until the approach of
+winter, having been advised that they proposed to dwell during the
+summer heats on the Toorgaï's fertile banks.
+
+One fine morning in September, 1771, this fatherly monarch was enjoying
+himself in hunting in a wild district north of the Great Wall. Here, for
+hundreds of square leagues, the country was overgrown with forest,
+filled with game. Centrally in this district rose a gorgeous
+hunting-lodge, to which the emperor retired annually for a season of
+escape from the cares of government. Leaving his lodge, he had pursued
+the game through some two hundred miles of forest, every night pitching
+his tent in a different locality. A military escort followed at no great
+distance in the rear.
+
+On the morning in question the emperor found himself on the margin of
+the vast deserts of Asia, which stretched interminably away. As he stood
+in his tent door, gazing across the extended plain, he saw with
+surprise, far to the west, a vast dun cloud arise, which mounted and
+spread until it covered that whole quarter of the sky. It thickened as
+it rose, and began to roll in billowy volumes towards his camp.
+
+This singular phenomenon aroused general attention. The suite of the
+emperor hastened to behold it. In the rear the silver trumpets sounded,
+and from the forest avenues rode the imperial cavalry escort. All eyes
+were fixed upon the rolling cloud, the sentiment of curiosity being
+gradually replaced by a dread of possible danger. At first the
+dust-cloud was imagined to be due to a vast troop of deer or other wild
+animals, driven into the plain by the hunting train or by beasts of
+prey. This conception vanished as it came nearer, until, seemingly, it
+was but a few miles away.
+
+And now, as the breeze freshened a little, the vapory curtain rolled
+and eddied, until it assumed the appearance of vast aerial draperies
+depending from the heavens to the earth; sometimes, where rent by the
+eddying breeze, it resembled portals and archways, through which, at
+intervals, were seen the gleam of weapons and the dim forms of camels
+and human beings. At times, again, the cloud thickened, shutting all
+from view; but through it broke the din of battle, the shouts of
+combatants, the roar of infuriated hordes in mortal conflict.
+
+It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last stage of misery and
+exhaustion, yet still pursued by their unrelenting foes. Of the six
+hundred thousand who had begun the journey scarcely a third remained,
+cold, heat, famine, and warfare having swept away nearly half a million
+of the fleeing host, while of their myriad animals only the camels and
+the horses brought from the Toorgaï remained. For the past ten days
+their suffering had reached a climax. They had been traversing a
+frightful desert, destitute alike of water and of vegetation. Two days
+before their small allowance of water had failed, and to the fatigue of
+flight had been added the horrors of insupportable thirst.
+
+On came the flying and fighting mass. It was soon evident that it was
+not moving towards the imperial train, and those who knew the country
+judged that it was speeding towards a large freshwater lake about seven
+or eight miles away. Thither the imperial cavalry, of which a strong
+body, attended with artillery, lay some miles in the rear, was ordered
+in all haste to ride; and there, at noon of September 8, the great
+migration of the Kalmucks came to an end, amid the most ferocious and
+bloodthirsty scene of its whole frightful course.
+
+The lake of Tengis lies in a hollow among low mountains, on the verge of
+the great desert of Gobi. The Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a
+road that led down to the lake at about eleven o'clock. The descent was
+a winding and difficult one, and took them an hour and a half, during
+the whole of which they were spectators of an extraordinary scene below,
+the last and most fiendish spectacle in eight months of almost constant
+warfare.
+
+The sight of the distant hills and forests on that morning, and the
+announcement of the guides that the lake of Tengis was near at hand, had
+excited the suffering host into a state of frenzy, and a wild rush was
+made for the water, in which all discipline was lost, and the heat of
+the day and the exhaustion of the people were ignored. The rear-guard
+joined in the mad flight. In among the people rode the savage Bashkirs,
+suffering as much as themselves, yet still eager for blood, and
+slaughtering them by wholesale, almost without resistance. Screams and
+shouts filled the air, but none heeded or halted, all rushing madly on,
+spurred forward by the intolerable agonies of thirst.
+
+At length the lake was reached. Into its waters dashed the whole
+suffering mass, forgetful of everything but the wild instinct to quench
+their thirst. But hardly had the water moistened their lips when the
+carnival of bloodshed was resumed, and the waters became crimsoned with
+gore. The savage Bashkirs rode fiercely through the host, striking off
+heads with unappeased fury. The mortal foes joined in a death-grapple in
+the waters, often sinking together beneath the ruffled surface. Even the
+camels were made to take part in the fight, striking down the foe with
+their lashing forelegs. The waters grew more and more polluted; but new
+myriads came up momentarily and plunged in, heedless of everything but
+thirst. Such a spectacle of revengeful passion, ghastly fear, the frenzy
+of hatred, mortal conflict, convulsion and despair as fell on the eyes
+of the approaching horsemen has rarely been seen, and that quiet
+mountain lake, which perhaps had never before vibrated with the sounds
+of battle, was on that fatal day converted into an encrimsoned sea of
+blood.
+
+At length the Bashkirs, alarmed by the near approach of the Chinese
+cavalry, began to draw off and gather into groups, in preparation to
+meet the onset of a new foe. As they did so, the commandant of a small
+Chinese fort, built on an eminence above the lake, poured an artillery
+fire into their midst. Each group was thus dispersed as rapidly as it
+formed, the Chinese cavalry reached the foot of the hills and joined in
+the attack, and soon a new scene of war and bloodshed was in full
+process of enactment.
+
+But the savage horsemen, convinced that the contest was growing
+hopeless, now began to retire, and were quickly in full flight into the
+desert, pursued as far as it was deemed wise. No pursuit was needed,
+even to satisfy the Kalmuck spirit of revenge. The fact that their
+enemies had again to cross that inhospitable desert, with its horrors of
+hunger and thirst, was as full of retribution as the most vindictive
+could have asked.
+
+Here ends our tale. The exhausted Kalmucks were abundantly provided for
+by their new lord and master, who supplied them with the food necessary,
+established them in a fertile region of his empire, furnished them with
+clothing, tools, a year's subsistence, grain for their fields, animals
+for their pastures, and money to aid them in their other needs,
+displaying towards his new subjects the most kindly and munificent
+generosity. They were placed under better conditions than they had
+enjoyed in Russia, though changed from a pastoral and nomadic people to
+an agricultural one.
+
+As for Zebek-Dorchi, his attempt on the life of the khan had produced a
+feud between the two, which grew until it attracted the attention of the
+emperor. Inquiring into the circumstances of the enmity, he espoused the
+cause of Oubacha, which so infuriated the foe of the khan that he wove
+nets of conspiracy even against the emperor himself. In the end
+Zebek-Dorchi, with his accomplices, was invited to the imperial lodge,
+and there, at a great banquet, his arts and plots were exposed, and he
+and all his followers were assassinated at the feast.
+
+As a durable monument to the mighty exodus of the Kalmucks, the most
+remarkable circumstance of the kind in the whole history of nations, the
+emperor Keen Lung ordered to be erected on the banks of the Ily, at the
+margin of the steppes, a great monument of granite and brass, bearing
+an inscription to the following effect:
+
+          By the Will of God,
+      Here, upon the brink of these Deserts,
+    Which from this Point begin and stretch away,
+        Pathless, treeless, waterless,
+For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty Nations,
+    Rested from their labors and from great afflictions
+      Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall,
+  And by the favor of KEEN LUNG, God's Lieutenant upon Earth,
+The Ancient Children of the Wilderness, the Torgote Tartars,
+    Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar,
+  Wandering sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial
+        Empire in the year 1616,
+  But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow,
+      Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd.
+         Hallowed be the spot forever, and
+      Hallowed be the day,--September 8, 1771.
+              Amen.
+
+
+
+
+_A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE._
+
+
+Catharine the Great earned her title cheaply, her patent of greatness
+being due to the fact that she had the judgment to select great generals
+and a great minister and the wisdom to cling to them. Russia grew
+powerful during her reign, largely through the able work of her
+generals, and she forgave Potemkin a thousand insults and unblushing
+robberies in view of his successful statesmanship. Potemkin possessed,
+in addition to his ability as a statesman, the faculty of a spectacular
+artist, and arranged a show for the empress which stands unrivalled amid
+the triumphs of the stage. It is the tale of this spectacle which we
+propose to tell.
+
+Catharine had literary aspirations, one of her admirations being
+Voltaire, with whom she corresponded, and on whom she depended to
+chronicle the glory of her reign. The poet had his dreams, in which the
+woman shared, and between them they contrived a scheme of a modern
+Utopia, a Russo-Grecian city of whose civilization the empress was to be
+the source, and which a decree was to raise from the desert and an idea
+make great. This fancy Potemkin, who stood ready to flatter the empress
+at any price, undertook to realize, and he built her a city in the
+fashion in which cities were built in the times of the Arabian Nights,
+and made it flourish in the same unsubstantial fashion. The magnificent
+Potemkin never hesitated before any question of cost. Russia was rich,
+and could bleed freely to please the empress's whim. He therefore
+ordered a city to be built, with dwellings and edifices of every
+description common to the cities of that date,--stores, palaces, public
+halls, private residences in profusion. The buildings ready, he sought
+for citizens, and forcibly drove the people from all quarters to take up
+a temporary residence within its walls. It was his one purpose to make a
+spectacle of this theatrical city to enchant the eyes of the empress. So
+that it had an appearance of prosperity during her visit, he cared not a
+fig if it fell to pieces and its inhabitants vanished as soon as his
+supporting hand was removed. He only required that the scenes should be
+set and the actors in place when the curtain rose.
+
+And the city grew, on the banks of the Dnieper, eighteen million rubles
+being granted by the empress for its cost,--though much of this clung to
+the bird-lime of avarice on Potemkin's fingers. It was named Kherson.
+The desert around it was erected into a province, entitled by the wily
+minister _Catharine's Glory_ (Slava Ekatarina). Another province,
+farther north, he named after his imperial mistress Ekatarinoslaf. And
+thus, by fraud and violence, a city to order was brought into existence.
+The stage was ready. The next thing to be done was to raise the curtain
+which hid it from Catharine's eyes.
+
+It was early in the year 1787 that the empress began her journey towards
+her Utopian city, to receive the homage of its citizens and to exhibit
+to the world the magnificence of her reign. Great projects were in the
+air. Poland had just been cut into fragments and distributed among the
+hungry kingdoms around. The same was to be done with Turkey. Joseph II.
+of Austria was to meet the empress in Kherson to consult upon this
+partition of the Turkish empire; while Constantine, grand duke of Russia
+and grandson of the empress, was to reign at Byzantium, or
+Constantinople, over the new empire carved from the Turkish realm. Such
+was the paper programme prepared by Potemkin and the empress, the
+minister doubtless smiling behind his sleeve, his mistress in solid
+earnest.
+
+And now we have the story to tell of one of the most marvellous journeys
+ever undertaken. It was made through a thinly inhabited wilderness,
+which to the belief of the empress was to be converted into a populous
+and thriving realm. That the journey might proceed by night as well as
+by day, great piles of wood were prepared at intervals of fifty perches,
+whose leaping flames gave to the high-road a brightness like that of
+day. In six days Smolensk was reached, and in twenty days the old
+Russian capital of Kief, where the procession halted for a season before
+proceeding towards its goal.
+
+As it went on, the whole country became transformed. The deserts were
+suddenly peopled, palaces awaited the train in the trackless wild,
+temporary villages hid the nakedness of the plain, and fireworks at
+night testified to the seeming joy of the populace. Wide roads were
+opened by the army in advance of the cortége, the mountains were
+illuminated as it passed, howling wildernesses were made to appear like
+fertile gardens, and great flocks and herds, gathered from distant
+pastures, delighted the eyes of the empress with the appearance of
+thrift and prosperity as her vehicle drove rapidly along the roads. To
+the charmed eyes of those not "to the manner born" the whole country
+seemed populous and prosperous, the people joyous, the soil fertile, the
+land smiling with abundance. There was no hint to indicate that it was a
+desert covered for the time being by an enamelled carpet.
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM.]
+
+The Dnieper reached, the empress and her train passed down that river in
+fifteen splendid galleys, with the pomp of a triumphal procession. It
+was now the month of May, and the banks of the river showed the same
+signs of prosperity as had the sides of the road. At Kaidack the emperor
+Joseph met the empress, having reached Kherson in advance and gone north
+to anticipate her coming. He accompanied her down the stream, looking
+with her on the show of prosperity and populousness which delighted her
+inexperienced eyes, and smiling covertly at the delusion which
+Potemkin's magic had raised, well assured that as soon as she had passed
+silence and desertion would succeed these busy scenes. At a new
+projected town on the way, of which Catharine had, with much ceremony,
+laid the first stone, Joseph was asked to lay the second. He did so,
+afterwards saying of the farcical proceeding, "The Empress of Russia and
+I have finished a very important business in a single day: she has laid
+the first stone of a city, and I have laid the last." He had no doubt
+that, when they had gone, the buildings in which they had slept, the
+villages which they had seen, the wayside herders and flocks, would
+vanish like theatrical scenery, and the country present the dismal
+aspect of a deserted stage.
+
+At length the new city was reached, the magical Kherson. Catharine
+entered it in grand state, under a noble triumphal arch inscribed in
+Greek with the words "The Way to Byzantium." It was a busy city in which
+she found herself. The houses were all inhabited; shops, filled with
+goods, lined the principal streets; people thronged the sidewalks,
+spectators of the entry; luxury of every kind awaited the empress in the
+capital which had arisen for her as by the rubbing of Aladdin's ring,
+and entertainments of the most lavish character were prepared by the
+potent genius to whom all she saw was due. Potemkin hesitated at no
+expense. The journey had cost the empire no less than seven millions of
+rubles, fourteen thousand of which were expended on the throne built for
+the empress in what was named the admiralty of Kherson.
+
+Such was the scenery prepared for one of the most theatrical events the
+world has ever witnessed. It cost the empire dearly, but Potemkin's
+purpose was achieved. He had charmed the empress by causing the desert
+to "blossom like the rose," and after the spectators had passed all sank
+again into silence and emptiness. The new empire of Byzantium remained a
+dream. Turkey had not been consulted in the project, and was not quite
+ready to consent to be dismembered to gratify the whim of empress and
+emperor.
+
+As for the city of Kherson, its site was badly chosen, and its seeming
+prosperity and populousness during the empress's presence quickly passed
+away. The city has remained, but its actual growth has been gradual, and
+it has been thrown into the shade by Odessa, a port founded some years
+later without a single flourish of trumpets, but which has now grown to
+be the fourth city of Russia in size and importance. Of late years
+Kherson has shown some signs of increase, but all we need say further of
+it here is that it has the honor of being the burial-place of the shrewd
+Potemkin, under whose fostering hand it burst into such premature bloom
+in its early days.
+
+
+
+
+_KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND._
+
+
+Of the several nations that made up the Europe of the eighteenth
+century, one, the kingdom of Poland, vanished before the nineteenth
+century began. Destitute of a strong central government, the scene of
+continual anarchy among the turbulent nobles, possessing no national
+frontiers and no national middle class, its population being made up of
+nobles, serfs, and foreigners, it lay at the mercy of the ambitious
+surrounding kingdoms, by which it was finally absorbed. On three
+successive occasions was the territory of the feeble nation divided
+between its foes, the first partition being made in 1772, between
+Russia, Prussia, and Austria; the second in 1793, between Russia and
+Prussia; and the third and final in 1795, in which Russia, Prussia, and
+Austria again took part, all that remained of the country being now
+distributed and the ancient kingdom of Poland effaced from the map of
+Europe.
+
+Only one vigorous attempt was made to save the imperilled realm, that of
+the illustrious Kosciusko, who, though he failed in his patriotic
+purpose, made his name famous as the noblest of the Poles. When he
+appeared at the head of its armies, Poland was in a desperate strait.
+Some of its own nobles had been bought by Russian gold, Russian armies
+had overrun the land, and a Prussian force was marching to their aid.
+At Grodno the Russian general proudly took his seat on that throne which
+he was striving to overthrow. The defenders of Poland had been
+dispersed, their property confiscated, their families reduced to
+poverty. The Russians, swarming through the kingdom, committed the
+greatest excesses, while Warsaw, which had fallen into their hands, was
+governed with arrogant barbarity. Such was the state of affairs when
+some of the most patriotic of the nobles assembled and sent to
+Kosciusko, asking him to put himself at their head.
+
+As a young man this valiant Pole had aided in the war for American
+independence. In 1792 he took part in the war for the defence of his
+native land. But he declared that there could be no hope of success
+unless the peasants were given their liberty. Hitherto they had been
+treated in Poland like slaves. It was with these despised serfs that
+this effort was made.
+
+In 1794 the insurrection broke out. Kosciusko, finding that the country
+was ripe for revolt against its oppressors, hastened from Italy, whither
+he had retired, and appeared at Cracow, where he was hailed as the
+coming deliverer of the land. The only troops in arms were a small force
+of about four thousand in all, who were joined by about three hundred
+peasants armed with scythes. These were soon met by an army of seven
+thousand Russians, whom they put to flight after a sharp engagement.
+
+The news of this battle stirred the Russian general in command at Warsaw
+to active measures. All whom he suspected of favoring the insurrection
+were arrested. The result was different from what he had expected. The
+city blazed into insurrection, two thousand Russians fell before the
+onslaught of the incensed patriots, and their general saved himself only
+by flight.
+
+The outbreak at Warsaw was followed by one at Vilna, the capital of
+Lithuania, the Russians here being all taken prisoners. Three Polish
+regiments mustered into the Russian service deserted to the army of
+their compatriots, and far and wide over the country the flames of
+insurrection spread.
+
+Kosciusko rapidly increased his forces by recruiting the peasantry,
+whose dress he wore and whose food he shared in. But these men
+distrusted the nobles, who had so long oppressed them, while many of the
+latter, eager to retain their valued prerogatives, worked against the
+patriot cause, in which they were aided by King Stanislaus, who had been
+subsidized by Russian gold.
+
+To put down this effort of despair on the part of the Poles, Catharine
+of Russia sent fresh armies to Poland, led by her ablest generals.
+Prussians and Austrians also joined in the movement for enslavement,
+Frederick William of Prussia fighting at the head of his troops against
+the Polish patriot. Kosciusko had established a provisional government,
+and faced his foes boldly in the field. Defeated, he fell back on
+Warsaw, where he valiantly maintained himself until threatened by two
+new Russian armies, whom he marched out to meet, in the hope of
+preventing their junction.
+
+The decisive battle took place at Maciejowice, in October, 1794.
+Kosciusko, though pressed by superior forces, fought with the greatest
+valor and desperation. His men at length, overpowered by numbers, were
+in great part cut to pieces or obliged to yield, while their leader,
+covered with wounds, fell into the hands of his foes. It is said that he
+exclaimed, on seeing all hopes at an end, "Finis Poloniæ!" In the words
+of the poet Byron, "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell."
+
+Warsaw still held out. Here all who had escaped from the field took
+refuge, occupying Praga, the eastern suburb of the city, where
+twenty-six thousand Poles, with over one hundred cannon and mortars,
+defended the bridges over the Vistula. Suwarrow, the greatest of the
+Russian generals, was quickly at the city gates. He was weaker, both in
+men and in guns, than the defenders of the city; but with his wonted
+impetuosity he resolved to employ the same tactics which he had more
+than once used against the Turks, and seek to carry the Polish lines at
+the bayonet's point.
+
+After a two days' cannonade, he ordered the assault at daybreak of
+November 4. A desperate conflict continued during the five succeeding
+hours, ending in the carrying of the trenches and the defeat of the
+garrison. The Russians now poured into the suburb, where a scene of
+frightful carnage began. Not only men in arms, but old men, women, and
+children were ruthlessly slaughtered, the wooden houses set on fire, the
+bridges broken down, and the throng of helpless people who sought to
+escape into the city driven ruthlessly into the waters of the Vistula.
+In this butchery not only ten thousand soldiers, but twelve thousand
+citizens of every age and sex were remorselessly slain.
+
+On the following day the city capitulated, and on the 6th the Russian
+victors marched into its streets. It was, as Kosciusko had said, "the
+end of Poland." The troops were disarmed, the officers were seized as
+prisoners, and the feeble king was nominally raised again to the head of
+the kingdom, so soon to be swept from existence. For a year Suwarrow
+held a military court in Warsaw, far eclipsing the king in the splendor
+of his surroundings. By the close of 1795 all was at an end. The small
+remnant left of the kingdom was parted between the greedy aspirants, and
+on the 1st of January, 1796, Warsaw was handed over to Prussia, to whose
+share of the spoils it appertained.
+
+In this arbitrary manner was a kingdom which had an area of nearly three
+hundred thousand square miles and a population of twelve millions, and
+whose history dated back to the tenth century, removed from the map of
+the world, while the heavy hand of oppression fell upon all who dared to
+speak or act in its behalf. One bold stroke for freedom was afterwards
+made, but it ended as before, and Poland is now but a name.
+
+
+
+
+_SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE._
+
+
+Of men born for battle, to whose ears the roar of cannon and the clash
+of sabres are the only music, the smoke of conflict their native
+atmosphere, Suwarrow (Suvarof, to give him his Russian name) stands
+among the foremost. A little, wrinkled, stooping man, five feet four
+inches in height and sickly in appearance, he was the last to whom one
+would have looked for great deeds in war or mighty exploits in the
+embattled field. Yet he had the soul of a hero in his diminutive frame,
+and even as a boy the passion for military glory fired his heart, Cæsar
+and Charles XII. of Sweden (from which country his ancestors came) being
+the heroes worshipped by his youthful imagination. Born in 1729, he
+entered the army as a private at seventeen, but rapidly rose from the
+ranks, made himself famous in the Seven Years' War and in the Polish war
+of 1768-71, and from that time until death put an end to his career was
+almost constantly in the field. Napoleon, against whose armies he fought
+in his later days, was not more enraptured with the breath of battle
+than was this war-dog of the Russian army.
+
+Diminutive and sickly as he looked, Suwarrow was strong and hardy, and
+so inured to hardship that the severity of the Russian climate failed
+to affect his vigorous frame. Disdaining luxury, and ignoring comfort,
+he lived like the soldiers under his command, preferring to sleep on a
+truss of hay, and accepting every privation which his men might be
+called on to endure. He was a man of high intelligence, a clever
+linguist, and a diligent reader even when on campaign, and religiously
+seems to have been very devout, being ready to kneel and pray before
+every wayside image, even when the roads were deep with mud.
+
+In his ordinary manners he carried eccentricity to an extravagant
+extent, was brusque and curt in speech, often to the verge of insult,
+laconic in his despatches, and--a soldier in grain--treated with
+stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his
+contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the
+Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad thirst for change, the latter
+attempted to change the native dress of the Russian soldier for the
+ancient attire of Germany. His fair locks, which the Russian was used to
+wash every morning, he was now bidden to bedaub with grease and flour,
+while he energetically cursed the black spatterdashes which it took him
+an hour to button every morning. Orders to establish these novelties
+among his men were sent to Suwarrow, then in Italy with the army, the
+directions being accompanied with little sticks for models of the tails
+and side curls in which the soldiers' hair was to be arranged. The old
+warrior's lips curled contemptuously on seeing these absurd devices, and
+he growled out in his curt fashion, "Hair-powder is not gunpowder;
+curls are not cannon; and tails are not bayonets."
+
+This sarcastic utterance, which forms a sort of rhyming verse in the
+Russian tongue, got abroad, and spread from mouth to mouth through the
+army like a choice morsel of wit. The czar, to whose ears it came, heard
+it with deep offence. Soon after Suwarrow was recalled from the army, on
+another plea, and on his return to St. Petersburg was not permitted to
+see the emperor's face. This injustice may have been a cause of his
+death, which occurred shortly after his return, on May 18, 1800. No
+courtier of the Russian court, and no diplomatist, except the English
+ambassador, followed the war-worn veteran to the grave.
+
+Suwarrow was the idol of his men, whose favorite title for him was
+"Father Suvarof," and who were ready at command to follow him to the
+cannon's mouth. In all his long career he never lost a battle, and only
+once in his life of war acted on the defensive. With a superb faith in
+his own star, the inspiration of the moment served him for counsel, and
+rapidity of movement and boldness and dash in the onset brought him many
+a victory where deliberation might have led to defeat.
+
+A striking instance of this, and of his usual brusque eccentricity, took
+place in 1799 in Italy, where Suwarrow was placed in command of all the
+allied troops. This raising of a Russian to the supreme command excited
+the jealousy of the Austrian generals, and they called a council of war
+to examine his plans for the campaign. The members of the council, the
+youngest first, gave their views as to the conduct of the war. Suwarrow
+listened in grim silence until they had all spoken, and had turned to
+him for his comment on their views. The wrinkled veteran drew to himself
+a slate, and made on it two lines.
+
+"Here, gentlemen," he said, pointing to one line, "are the French, and
+here are the Russians. The latter will march against the former and beat
+them." This said, he rubbed out the French line. Then, looking up at his
+surprised auditors, he curtly remarked, "This is all my plan. The
+council is ended."
+
+In war he is said to have been averse to the shedding of blood, and to
+have been at heart humane and merciful. Yet this hardly accords with the
+story of his exploits, it being said that twenty-six thousand Turks were
+killed in the storming of Ismail, while in that of Praga at Warsaw more
+than twenty thousand Poles were massacred.
+
+Such was the character of one of the men who aided to make glorious the
+reign of Catharine of Russia, and whose merit she--unlike her weak son
+Paul--was fully competent to appreciate. With this estimate of the
+greatest soldier Russia has ever produced, and one of the ablest
+generals of modern times, we may briefly describe some of the most
+striking exploits of Suwarrow's career.
+
+In 1789, during one of the interminable wars against Turkey, in which on
+this occasion the Austrians took part with the Russians, the Prince of
+Coburg was at the head of an Austrian force, which he was strikingly
+incapable of commanding. The prince, advancing with sublime
+deliberation, found himself suddenly threatened by a considerable
+Turkish army. Filled with alarm at the sight of the enemy, he sent a
+hasty appeal to Suwarrow to come to his aid.
+
+The Russian general had just rejoined his army after recovering from a
+wound. The news of Coburg's peril reached him at Belat, in Moldavia,
+between forty and fifty miles away, and these miles of mountains,
+ravines, and almost impassable wilds. Suwarrow at once broke camp, and
+with his usual impetuosity led his army over its difficult route,
+reaching the Austrians in less than thirty-six hours after receiving the
+news.
+
+It was five o'clock in the evening when he arrived. At eleven he sent
+his plan of attack to the prince. An assault on the enemy was to be made
+at two in the morning. Coburg, who had never dreamed of such rapidity of
+movement and such impetuosity in action, was utterly astounded. In
+complete bewilderment, he sought Suwarrow at his quarters, going there
+three times without finding him. The supreme command belonged to him as
+the older general, but he had the sense not to claim it, and to act as a
+subordinate to his abler ally. In an hour after the advance began the
+allied armies were in the Turkish camp, and the Turks, though much
+outnumbering their assailants, were in full flight. All their stores, a
+hundred standards, and seventy pieces of artillery fell into the hands
+of the victors.
+
+Suwarrow returned to Moldavia, and Coburg looked quietly on while the
+Turks collected a new army. In less than two months he found himself
+confronted by a hundred thousand men. In new alarm, he hastily sent
+again to Suwarrow for aid.
+
+In two days the Russian army had reached the Austrian camp, which the
+enemy was just about to attack. The Turks had neglected to fortify their
+camp before offering battle. Of this oversight the keen-eyed Russian
+took instant advantage, attacked them in their unfinished trenches, and,
+as before, took their camp by storm,--though after a more stubborn
+defence than in the previous instance. The Turkish army was again
+dispersed, immense booty was taken, and Suwarrow received for his valor
+the title of a count of the Austrian empire, while the empress Catharine
+gave him in reward the honorable surname of Rimniksky, from the name of
+the river on which the battle had been fought.
+
+The next great exploit of Suwarrow was performed at Ismail, a Turkish
+town which Potemkin had been besieging for seven months. The prime
+minister at length grew impatient at the delay, and determined on more
+effective measures. Living in a luxury in his camp that contrasted
+strangely with the sparse conditions of Suwarrow, Potemkin was
+surrounded by courtiers and ladies, who made strenuous efforts to
+furnish the great man with amusement. One of the ladies, handling a pack
+of cards, from which she laughingly pretended to be able to read the
+secrets of destiny, proclaimed that he would be in possession of the
+town at the end of three weeks.
+
+"You are not bad at prediction," said Potemkin, with a smile, "but I
+have a method of divination far more infallible. My prediction is that I
+will have the town in three days."
+
+He at once sent orders to Suwarrow, who was at Galatz, to come and take
+the town.
+
+The obedient warrior, who seemed to be always at somebody's beck and
+call, quickly appeared and surveyed the situation. His first steps
+seemed to indicate that he proposed to continue the siege, the troops
+being formed into a besieging army of about forty thousand men, while
+the Russian fleet was ordered up to the town. But the deliberation of a
+siege never accorded with Suwarrow's ardent humor. His real purpose was
+to take the place by storm. He had taken Otchakof in this way the
+previous year with heavy loss, and with the slaughter of twenty thousand
+Turks. He now, on the 21st of September, twice summoned the city to
+surrender, threatening the people with the fate of Otchakof. They
+refused to yield, and the assault began at four o'clock of the following
+morning.
+
+Battalion after battalion was hurled against the walls: the slaughter
+from the Turkish fire was frightful, but the stern commander hurled ever
+new hosts into the pit of death, and about eight o'clock the summit of
+the walls was reached. But the work was yet only begun. The city was
+defended street by street, house by house. It was noon before the
+Russians, fighting their way through a desperate resistance, reached the
+market-place, where were gathered a body of the Tartars of the Crimea.
+For two hours these fought fiercely for their lives, and after they had
+all fallen the Turks kept up the conflict with equal desperation in the
+streets. At length the gates were thrown open and Suwarrow sent his
+cavalry into the city, who charged through the streets, cutting down all
+whom they met. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the butchery
+ended, after which the city was given up for three days to the mercy of
+the troops. According to the official report, the Turks lost forty-three
+thousand in killed and prisoners, the Russians forty-five hundred in
+all; the one estimate probably as much too large as the other was too
+small.
+
+We may conclude with the story of Suwarrow's career in Italy and
+Switzerland against the armies of the French republic. The plan which
+the Russian conqueror had marked out on the slate for the Austrian
+generals was literally fulfilled. In less than three months he had
+cleared Lombardy and Piedmont of the troops of France. He forced the
+passage of the Adda against Moreau and his army, compelling the French
+to abandon Milan, which he entered in triumph. His next success was at
+Turin, a dépôt of French supplies, towards which Moreau was hastily
+advancing. The Russians took the city by surprise, driving the French
+garrison into the citadel, and capturing three hundred cannons and
+enormous quantities of muskets, ammunition, and military stores. The
+French army was saved from ruin only by the great ability of its
+commander, who led it to Genoa in four days over a mountain path.
+
+The czar Paul rewarded his victorious general with the honorable
+designation of Italienski, or the Italian, and, in his grandiloquent
+fashion, issued a ukase commanding all people to regard Suwarrow as the
+greatest commander the world had ever known.
+
+We cannot describe the whole course of events. Other victories were won
+in Italy, but finally Suwarrow was weakened by the jealousy of the
+Austrians, who withdrew their troops, and subsequently was obliged to go
+to the relief of his fellow-commander, Korsakof, who, with twenty
+thousand men, had imprudently allowed himself to be hemmed in by a
+French army at Zurich. He finally forced his way through the enemy,
+losing all his artillery and half his host.
+
+Of this Suwarrow knew nothing, as he made his way across the Alps to the
+aid of the beleaguered general. He attempted to force his way over the
+St. Gothard pass, meeting with fierce opposition at every point. There
+was a sharp fight at the Devil's Bridge, which the French blew up, but
+failed to keep back Suwarrow and his men, who crossed the rocky gorge of
+the Unerloch, dashed through the foaming Reuss, and drove the French
+from their post of vantage.
+
+At length, with his men barefoot, his provisions almost exhausted, the
+Russian general reached Muotta, to find to his chagrin that Korsakof had
+been defeated and put to flight. He at once began his retreat, followed
+in force by Masséna, who was driven off by the rear-guard. On October 1
+Suwarrow reached Glarus. Here he rested till the 4th, then crossed the
+Panixer Mountains through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine,
+which he reached on the 10th, having lost two hundred of his men and
+all his beasts of burden over the precipices. Thus ended this
+extraordinary march, which had cost Suwarrow all his artillery, nearly
+all his horses, and a third of his men.
+
+These losses in the Russian armies stirred the czar to immeasurable
+rage. All the missing officers--who were prisoners in France--were
+branded as deserters, and Suwarrow was deprived of his command,
+ostensibly for his failure, but largely for the sarcasm already
+mentioned. He returned home to die, having experienced what a misfortune
+it is for a great man to be at the mercy of a fool in authority.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RETREAT OF NAPOLEON'S GRAND ARMY._
+
+
+In the spring of 1812 Napoleon reached the frontiers of Russia at the
+head of the greatest army that had ever been under his command, it
+embracing half a million of men. It was not an army of Frenchmen,
+however, since much more than half the total force was made up of
+Germans and soldiers of other nationalities. In addition to the soldiery
+was a multitude of non-combatants and other incumbrances, which
+Napoleon, deviating from his usual custom, allowed to follow the troops.
+These were made up of useless aids to the pomp and luxury of the emperor
+and his officers, and an incredible number of private vehicles, women,
+servants, and others, who served but to create confusion, and to consume
+the army stores, of which provision had been made for only a short
+campaign.
+
+Thus, dragging its slow length along, the army, on June 24, 1812,
+crossed the Niemen River and entered upon Russian soil. From emperor to
+private, all were inspired with exaggerated hopes of victory, and looked
+soon to see the mighty empire of the north prostrate before the genius
+of all-conquering France. Had the vision of that army, as it was to
+recross the Niemen within six months, risen upon their minds, it would
+have been dismissed as a nightmare of false and monstrous mien.
+
+Onward into Russia wound the vast and hopeful mass, without a battle and
+without sight of a foe. The Russians were retreating and drawing their
+foes deeper and deeper into the heart of their desolate land. Battles
+were not necessary; the country itself fought for Russia. Food was not
+to be had from the land, which was devastated in their track. Burning
+cities and villages lit up their path. The carriages and wagons, even
+many of the cannon, had to be left behind. The forced marches which
+Napoleon made in the hope of overtaking the Russians forced him to
+abandon much of his supplies, while men and horses sank from fatigue and
+hunger. The decaying carcasses of ten thousand horses already poisoned
+the air.
+
+At length Moscow was approached. Here the Russian leaders were forced by
+the sentiment of the army and the people to strike one blow in defence
+of their ancient capital. A desperate encounter took place at Borodino,
+two days' march from the city, in which Napoleon triumphed, but at a
+fearful price. Forty thousand men had fallen, of whom the wounded nearly
+all died through want and neglect. When Moscow was reached, it proved to
+be deserted. Napoleon had won the empty shell of a city, and was as far
+as ever from the conquest of Russia.
+
+It is not our purpose here to give the startling story of the burning of
+Moscow, the sacrifice of a city to the god of war. Though this is one of
+the most thrilling events in the history of Russia, it has already been
+told in this series.[1] We are concerned at present solely with the
+retreat of the grand army from the ashes of the Muscovite capital, the
+most dreadful retreat in the annals of war.
+
+Napoleon lingered amid the ruins of the ancient city until winter was
+near at hand, hoping still that the emperor Alexander would sue for
+peace. No suit came. He offered terms himself, and they were not even
+honored with a reply. A deeply disappointed man, the autocrat of Europe
+marched out of Moscow on October 19 and began his frightful homeward
+march. He had waited much too long. The Russian armies, largely
+increased in numbers, shut him out from every path but the wasted one by
+which he had come, a highway marked by the ashes of burnt towns and the
+decaying corpses of men and animals.
+
+On November 6, winter suddenly set in. The supplies had largely been
+consumed, the land was empty of food, famine alternated with cold to
+crush the retreating host, and death in frightful forms hovered over
+their path. The horses, half fed and worn out, died by thousands. Most
+of the cavalry had to go afoot; the booty brought from Moscow was
+abandoned as valueless; even much of the artillery was left behind. The
+cold grew more intense. A deep snow covered the plain, through whose
+white peril they had to drag their weary feet. Arms were flung away as
+useless weights, flight was the only thought, and but a tithe of the
+army remained in condition to defend the rest.
+
+The retreat of the grand army became one of incredible distress and
+suffering. Over the seemingly endless Russian steppes, from whose
+snow-clad level only rose here and there the ruins of a deserted
+village, the freezing and starving soldiers made their miserable way.
+Wan, hollow-eyed, gaunt, clad in garments through which the biting cold
+pierced their flesh, they dragged wearily onward, fighting with one
+another for the flesh of a dead horse, ready to commit murder for the
+shadow of food, and finally sinking in death in the snows of that
+interminable plain. Each morning, some of those who had stretched their
+limbs round the bivouac fires failed to rise. The victims of the night
+were often revealed only by the small mounds of fallen snow which had
+buried them as they slept.
+
+That this picture may not be thought overdrawn, we shall relate an
+anecdote told of Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. He had fallen asleep in
+the snow, and in order to protect him from the keen north wind four of
+his Hessian dragoons screened him during the night with their cloaks.
+The prince arose from his cold couch in the morning to find his faithful
+guardians still in the position they had occupied during the
+night,--frozen to death.
+
+Maddened with famine and frost, men were seen to spring, with wildly
+exulting cries, into the flames of burning houses. Of those that fell
+into the hands of the Russian boors, many were stripped of their
+clothing and chased to death through the snow. Smolensk, which the army
+had passed in its glory, it now reached in its gloom. The city was
+deserted and half burned. Most of the cannon had been abandoned, food
+and ammunition were lacking, and no halt was possible. The despairing
+army pushed on.
+
+Death followed the fugitives in other forms than those of frost and
+hunger. The Russians, who had avoided the army in its advance, harassed
+it continually in its retreat. From all directions Russian troops
+marched upon the worn-out fugitives, grimly determined that not a man of
+them should leave Russia if they could prevent. The intrepid Ney, with
+the men still capable of fight, formed the rear-guard, and kept at bay
+their foes. This service was one of imminent peril. Cut off at Smolensk
+from the main body, only Ney's vigilance saved his men from destruction.
+During the night he led them rapidly along the banks of the Dnieper,
+repulsing the Russian corps that sought to cut off his retreat, and
+joined the army again.
+
+The Beresina at length was reached. This river must be crossed. But the
+frightful chill, which hitherto had pursued the fleeing host, now
+inopportunely decreased, a thaw broke the frozen surface of the stream,
+and the fugitives gazed with horror on masses of floating ice where they
+had dreamed of a solid pathway for their feet. The slippery state of the
+banks added to the difficulty, while on the opposite side a Russian army
+commanded the passage with its artillery, and in the rear the roar of
+cannon signalled the approach of another army. All seemed lost, and
+only the good fortune which had so often befriended him now saved
+Napoleon and his host.
+
+For at this critical moment a fresh army corps, which had been left
+behind in his advance, came to the emperor's aid, and the Russian
+general who disputed the passage, deceived by the French movements,
+withdrew to another point on the stream. Taking instant advantage of the
+opportunity, Napoleon threw two bridges across the river, over which the
+able-bodied men of the army safely made their way.
+
+After them came the vast host of non-combatants that formed the rear,
+choking the bridges with their multitude. As they struggled to cross,
+the pursuing Russian army appeared and opened with artillery upon the
+helpless mass, ploughing long red lanes of carnage through its midst.
+One bridge broke down, and all rushed to the other. Multitudes were
+forced into the stream, while the Russian cannon played remorselessly
+upon the struggling and drowning mass. For two days the passage had
+continued, and on the morning of the third a considerable number of sick
+and wounded soldiers, sutlers, women, and children still remained
+behind, when word reached them that the bridges were to be burned. A
+fearful rush now took place. Some succeeded in crossing, but the fire
+ran rapidly along the timbers, and the despairing multitude leaped into
+the icy river or sought to plunge through the mounting flames. When the
+ice thawed in the spring twelve thousand dead bodies were found on the
+shores of the stream. Sixteen thousand of the fugitives remained
+prisoners in Russian hands.
+
+This day of disaster was the climax of the frightful retreat. But as
+the army pressed onward the temperature again fell, until it reached
+twenty-seven degrees below zero, and the old story of "frozen to death"
+was resumed. Napoleon, fearing to be taken prisoner in Germany if the
+truth should become known, left his army on December 5, and hurried
+towards Paris with all speed, leaving the news of the disaster behind in
+his flight. Wilna was soon after reached by the army, but could not be
+held by the exhausted troops, and, with its crowded magazines and the
+wealth in its treasury, fell into the hands of the Russians.
+
+During this season of disaster the Austrian and Prussian commanders left
+behind to guard the route contrived to spare their troops.
+Schwarzenberg, the Austrian commander, retreated towards Warsaw and left
+the Russian armies free to act against the French. The Prussians, who
+had been engaged in the siege of Riga, might have covered the fleeing
+host; but York, their commander, entered into a truce with the Russians
+and remained stationary. They had been forced to join the French, and
+took the first opportunity to abandon their hated allies.
+
+A place of safety was at length reached, but the grand army was
+represented by a miserable fragment of its mighty host. Of the
+half-million who crossed the Russian frontier, but eighty thousand
+returned. Of those who had reached Moscow, the meagre remnant numbered
+scarcely twenty thousand in all.
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF POLAND._
+
+
+The French revolution of 1830 precipitated a similar one in Poland. The
+rule of Russia in that country had been one of outrage and oppression.
+In the words of the Poles, "personal liberty, which had been solemnly
+guaranteed, was violated; the prisons were crowded; courts-martial were
+appointed to decide in civil cases, and imposed infamous punishments
+upon citizens whose only crime was that of having attempted to save from
+corruption the spirit and the character of the nation."
+
+On the 29th of November the people sprang to arms in Warsaw and the
+Russians were driven out. Soon after a dictator was chosen, an army
+collected, and Russian Poland everywhere rose in revolt.
+
+It was a hopeless struggle into which the Polish patriots had entered.
+In all Europe there was not a hand lifted in their aid. Prussia and
+Austria stood in a threatening attitude, each with an army of sixty
+thousand men upon the frontiers, ready to march to the aid of Russia if
+any disturbance took place in their Polish provinces. Russia invaded the
+country with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, a force
+more than double that which Poland was able to raise. And the Polish
+army was commanded by a titled incapable, Prince Radzivil, chosen
+because he had a great name, regardless of his lack of ability as a
+soldier. Chlopicki, his aide, was a skilled commander, but he fought
+with his hands tied.
+
+On the 19th of February, 1831, the two armies met in battle, and began a
+desperate struggle which lasted with little cessation for six days.
+Warsaw lay in the rear of the Polish army. Behind it flowed the Vistula,
+with but a single bridge for escape in case of defeat. Victory or death
+seemed the alternatives of the patriot force.
+
+[Illustration: RUSSIAN PEASANTS.]
+
+The struggle was for the Alder Wood, the key of the position. For the
+possession of this forest the fight was hand to hand. Again and again it
+was lost and retaken. On the 25th, the final day of battle, it was held
+by the Poles. Forty-five thousand in number, they were confronted by a
+Russian army of one hundred thousand men. Diebitsch, the Russian
+commander, determined to win the Alder Wood at any cost. Chlopicki gave
+orders to defend it to the last extremity.
+
+The struggle that succeeded was desperate. By sheer force of numbers the
+Russians made themselves masters of the wood. Then Chlopicki, putting
+himself at the head of his grenadiers, charged into the forest depths,
+driving out its holders at the bayonet's point. Their retreat threw the
+whole Russian line into confusion. Now was the critical moment for a
+cavalry charge. Chlopicki sent orders to the cavalry chief, but he
+refused to move. This loss of an opportunity for victory maddened the
+valiant leader. "Go and ask Radzivil," he said to the aides who asked
+for orders; "for me, I seek only death." Plunging into the ranks of the
+enemy, he was wounded by a shell, and borne secretly from the field. But
+the news of this disaster ran through the ranks and threw the whole army
+into consternation.
+
+The fall of the gallant Chlopicki changed the tide of battle. Fiercely
+struggling still, the Poles were driven from the wood and hurled back
+upon the Vistula. A battalion of recruits crossed the river on the ice
+and carried terror into Warsaw. Crowds of peasants, heaps of dead and
+dying, choked the approach to Praga, the outlying suburb. Night fell
+upon the scene of disorder. The houses of Praga were fired, and flames
+lit up the frightful scene. Groans of agony and shrieks of despair
+filled the air. The streets were choked with débris, but workmen from
+Warsaw rushed out with axes, cleared away the ruin, and left the
+passages free.
+
+Inspirited by this, the infantry formed in line and checked the charge
+of the Russian horse. The Albert cuirassiers rode through the first
+Polish line, but soon found their horses floundering in mud, and
+themselves attacked by lancers and pikemen on all sides. Of the
+brilliant and daring corps scarce a man escaped.
+
+That day cost the Poles five thousand men. Of the Russians more than ten
+thousand fell. Radzivil, fearing that the single bridge would be carried
+away by the broken ice, gave orders to retreat across the stream.
+Diebitsch withdrew into the wood. And thus the first phase of the
+struggle for the freedom of Poland came to an end.
+
+This affair was followed by a striking series of Polish victories. The
+ice in the Vistula was running free, the river overflowed its banks, and
+for a month the main bodies of the armies were at rest. But General
+Dwernicki, at the head of three thousand Polish cavalry, signalized the
+remainder of February by a series of brilliant exploits, attacking and
+dispersing with his small force twenty thousand of the enemy.
+
+Radzivil, whose incompetency had grown evident, was now removed, and
+Skrzynecki, a much abler leader, was chosen in his place. He was not
+long in showing his skill and daring. On the night of March 30 the Praga
+bridge was covered with straw and the army marched noiselessly across.
+At daybreak, in the midst of a thick fog, it fell on a body of sleeping
+Russians, who had not dreamed of such a movement. Hurled back in
+disorder and dismay, they were met by a division which had been posted
+to cut off their retreat. The rout was complete. Half the corps was
+destroyed or taken, and the remainder fled in terror through the forest
+depths.
+
+Before the day ended the Poles came upon Rosen's division, fifteen
+thousand in number, and strongly posted. Yet the impetuous onslaught of
+the Poles swept the field. The Russians were driven back in utter rout,
+with the loss of two thousand men, six thousand prisoners, and large
+quantities of cannon and arms. The Poles lost but three hundred men in
+this brilliant success. During the next day the pursuit continued, and
+five thousand more prisoners were taken. So disheartened were the
+Russian troops by these reverses that when attacked on April 10 at the
+village of Iganie they scarcely attempted to defend themselves. The
+flower of the Russian infantry, the _lions of Varna_, as they had been
+called since the Turkish war, laid down their arms, tore the eagles from
+their shakos, and gave themselves up as prisoners of war. Twenty-five
+hundred were taken.
+
+What immediately followed may be told in a few words. Skrzynecki failed
+to follow up his remarkable success, and lost valuable time, in which
+the Russians recovered from their dismay. The brave Dwernicki, after
+routing a force of nine thousand with two thousand men, crossed the
+frontier and was taken prisoner by the Austrians, who had made no
+objection to its being crossed by the Russians. And, as if nature were
+fighting against Poland, the cholera, which had crossed from India to
+Russia and infected the Russian troops, was communicated to the Poles at
+Iganie, and soon spread throughout their ranks.
+
+The climax in this suicidal war came on the 26th of May, when the whole
+Russian army, led by General Diebitsch, advanced upon the Poles. During
+the preceding night the Polish army had retreated across the river
+Narew, but, by some unexplained error, had left Lubienski's corps
+behind. On this gallant corps, drawn up in front of the town of
+Ostrolenka, the host of Russians fell. Flanked by the Cossacks, who
+spread out in clouds of horsemen on each wing, the cavalry retreated
+through the town, followed by the infantry, the 4th regiment of the
+line, which formed the rear-guard, fighting step by step as it slowly
+fell back.
+
+Across the bridges poured the retreating Poles. The Russians followed
+the rear-guard hotly into the town. Soon the houses were in flames.
+Disorder reigned in the streets. The fight continued in the midst of the
+conflagration. Russian infantry took possession of the houses adjoining
+the river and fired on the retreating mass. Artillery corps rushed to
+the river bank and planted their batteries to sweep the bridges. All the
+avenues of escape were choked by the columns of the invading force.
+
+The 4th regiment, which had been left alone in the town, was in imminent
+peril of capture, but at this moment of danger it displayed an
+indomitable spirit. With closed ranks it charged with the bayonet on the
+crowded mass before it, rent a crimson avenue through its midst, and
+cleared a passage to the bridges over heaps of the dead. Over the
+quaking timbers rushed the gallant Poles, followed closely by the
+Russian grenadiers. The Polish cannon swept the bridge, but the gunners
+were picked off by sharp-shooters and stretched in death beside their
+guns. On the curving left bank eighty Russian cannon were planted, whose
+fire protected the crossing troops.
+
+Meanwhile the bulk of the Polish army lay unsuspecting in its camp.
+Skrzynecki, the commander, resting easy in the belief that all his men
+were across, heard the distant firing with unconcern. Suddenly the
+imminence of the peril was brought to his attention. Rushing from his
+tent, and springing upon his horse, he galloped madly through the
+ranks, shouting wildly, as he passed from column to column, "Ho!
+Rybinski! Ho! Malachowski! Forward! forward, all!"
+
+The troops sprang to their feet; the forming battalions rushed forward
+in disorder; from end to end of the line rushed the generalissimo, the
+other officers hurrying to his aid. Charge after charge was made on the
+Russians who had crossed the stream. As if driven by frenzy, the Poles
+fell on their foes with swords and pikes. Singing the Warsaw hymn, the
+officers rushed to the front. The lancers charged boldly, but their
+horses sank in the marshy soil, and they fell helpless before the
+Russian fire.
+
+The day passed; night fell; the field of battle was strewn thick with
+the dead and dying. Only a part of the Russian army had succeeded in
+crossing. Skrzynecki held the field, but he had lost seven thousand men.
+The Russians, of whom more than ten thousand had fallen, recrossed the
+river during the night. But they commanded the passage of the stream,
+and the Polish commander gave orders for a retreat on Warsaw, sadly
+repeating, as he entered his carriage, Kosciusko's famous words, "Finis
+Poloniæ."
+
+The end indeed was approaching. The resources of Poland were limited,
+those of Russia were immense. New armies trebly replaced all Russian
+losses. Field-Marshal Paskievitch, the new commander, at the head of new
+forces, determined to cross the Vistula and assail Warsaw on the left
+bank of the stream, instead of attacking its suburb of Praga and
+seeking to force a passage across the river at that point, as on former
+occasions.
+
+The march of the Russians was a difficult and dangerous one. Heavy rains
+had made the roads almost impassable, while streams everywhere
+intersected the country. To transport a heavy park of artillery and the
+immense supply and baggage train for an army of seventy thousand men,
+through such a country, was an almost impossible task, particularly in
+view of the fact that the cholera pursued it on its march, and the sick
+and dying proved an almost fatal encumbrance.
+
+Had it been attacked under such circumstances by the Polish army, it
+might have been annihilated. But Skrzynecki remained immovable, although
+his troops cried hotly for "battle! battle!" whenever he appeared. The
+favorable moment was lost. The Russians crossed the Vistula on floating
+bridges, and marched in compact array upon the Polish capital.
+
+And now clamor broke out everywhere. Riots in Warsaw proclaimed the
+popular discontent. A dictator was appointed, and preparations to defend
+the city to the last extremity were made. But at the last moment twenty
+thousand men were sent out to collect supplies for the threatened city,
+leaving only thirty-five thousand for its defence. The Russians,
+meanwhile, had been reinforced by thirty thousand men, making their army
+one hundred and twenty thousand strong, while in cannon they outnumbered
+the Poles three to one.
+
+Such was the state of affairs in beleaguered Warsaw on that fatal 6th of
+September when the Russian general, taking advantage of the weakening
+of the patriot army, ordered a general assault.
+
+At daybreak the attack began with a concentrated fire from two hundred
+guns. The troops, who had been well plied with brandy, rushed in a
+torrent upon the battered walls, and swarmed into the suburb of Wola,
+driving its garrison into the church, where the carnage continued until
+none were left to resist.
+
+From Wola the attack was directed, about noon, upon the suburb of
+Czyste. This was defended by forty guns, which made havoc in the Russian
+ranks, while two battalions of the 4th regiment, rushing upon them in
+their disorder, strove to drive them back and wrest Wola from their
+hands. The effort was fruitless, strong reinforcements coming to the
+Russian aid.
+
+Through the blood-strewn streets of the city the struggle continued,
+success favoring now the Poles, now the Russians. About five in the
+afternoon the tide of battle turned decisively in favor of the Russians.
+A shower of shells from the Russian batteries had fired the houses of
+Czyste, within whose flame-lit streets a hand-to-hand struggle went on.
+The famous 4th regiment, intrenched in the cemetery, defended itself
+valiantly, but was driven back by the spread of the flames. Night fell,
+but the conflict continued. The dawn of the following day saw the city
+at the mercy of the Russian host. The twenty thousand men sent out to
+forage were still absent. Nothing remained but surrender, and at nine in
+the evening the news of the capitulation was brought to the army, to
+whom orders to retire on Praga were given.
+
+Thus ended the final struggle for the freedom of Poland. The story of
+what followed it is not our purpose to tell. The mild Alexander was no
+longer on the Russian throne. The stern Nicholas had replaced him, and
+fearful was his revenge. For the crime of patriotism Poland was
+decimated, thousands of its noblest citizens being transported to the
+Caucasus and Siberia. The remnant of separate existence possessed by
+Poland was overthrown, and it was made a province of the Russian empire.
+Even the teaching of the Polish language was forbidden, the youth of the
+nation being commanded to learn and speak the Russian tongue. As for the
+persecution and suffering which fell upon the Poles as a nation, it is
+too sad a story to be here told. There is still a Polish people, but a
+Poland no more.
+
+
+
+
+_SCHAMYL THE HERO OF CIRCASSIA._
+
+
+In the region lying between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea rise the
+rugged Caucasian Mountains, a mighty wall of rock which there divides
+the continents of Europe and Asia. Monarch of those lofty hills towers
+the tall peak of Elbrus, called by the natives "the great spirit of the
+mountains." Farther east Kasbek lifts its lofty summit, and at a lower
+level the whole jagged line, "the thousand-peaked Caucasus," rises into
+view. Below these a lower range, dark with forests, marks its outline on
+the snowy summits beyond. Fruitful clearings appear to the height of
+five thousand feet on the western slopes; garden terraces mount the
+eastward face, and the valleys, green with meadows or golden with grain,
+are dotted with clusters of cottages. Sheep and goats browse in great
+numbers on the hill-sides; lower down the camel and buffalo feed; herds
+of horses roam half wild through the glades, and from the higher rocks
+the chamois looks boldly down on the inhabited realms below.
+
+In these mountain fastnesses dwells a race of bold and liberty-loving
+mountaineers who have preserved their freedom through all the historic
+eras, yielding only at last, after years of valiant resistance, when the
+whole power of the Russian empire was brought to bear upon them in
+their wilds. For years the heroic Schamyl, their unconquerable chief,
+braved his foes, again and again he escaped from their toils or hurled
+them back in defeat, and for a quarter of a century he defied all the
+power of Russia, yielding only when driven to his final lair.
+
+In the _aoul_ or village of Himri, perched like an eagle's nest high on
+a projecting rock, this famous chief was born in the year 1797. The only
+access to this high-seated stronghold was by a narrow path winding
+several hundred feet up the slope, while a triple wall, flanked by high
+towers, further defended it, and the overhanging brow of the mountain
+guarded it above. Such is the character of one of the strongholds of
+this mountain land, and such an example of the difficulties its foes had
+to overcome.
+
+There are no finer horsemen than the daring Circassian mountaineers, who
+are ready to dash at full speed up or down precipitous steeps, to leap
+chasms, or to swim raging torrents. In an instant, also, they can
+discharge their weapons, unslinging the gun when at full gallop, firing
+upon the foe, and as quickly returning it to its place. They can rest
+suspended on the side of the horse, leap to the ground to pick up a
+fallen weapon, and bound into the saddle again without a halt. And such
+is the precision of their aim that they are able to strike the smallest
+mark while riding at full speed.
+
+Such were some of the arts in which Schamyl was trained, and in which he
+became signally expert. In the hunt, the trial of skill, all the labors
+and sports of the youthful mountaineers, he was an adept, and so valiant
+and resourceful that his admiring countrymen at length chose him as
+their Iman, or governor, during the defence of their country against the
+Russian invaders.
+
+The first battle in which Schamyl engaged was behind the walls of his
+native village. Himri, well situated as it was, was hurled into ruin by
+the artillery of the foe, and among its prostrate defenders lay Schamyl,
+with two balls through his body. He was left by the enemy as dead, and
+in after-years the mountaineers looked upon his escape and recovery as
+due to miracle.
+
+Schamyl was thirty-seven years of age when he became leader of the
+tribes. Of middle stature, with fair hair, gray eyes shadowed with thick
+brows, a Grecian nose, small mouth, and unusually fair complexion, he
+was one of the handsomest and most distinguished in appearance of the
+mountaineers. He was erect in carriage, light and active in tread, and
+had a natural nobility of air and aspect. His manner was calmly
+commanding, while his eloquence was at once fiery and persuasive.
+"Flames sparkle from his eyes," says one, "and flowers are scattered
+from his lips."
+
+In 1839 the Russians made one of their most determined efforts to crush
+the resistance of the mountaineers. Schamyl's head-quarters were then at
+Akhulgo, a stronghold perched upon the top of an isolated conical peak
+around whose foot a river wound. Strong by nature, it was well
+fortified, trenches, earthworks, and covered ways now taking the place
+of those stone walls which the Russian cannon had so easily overturned
+at Himri.
+
+Other fortified works were built on the road to Akhulgo, which was
+retained as a last resort, behind whose defences the mountaineers were
+resolved to conquer or die. Its garrison was composed of the flower of
+the Circassian warriors, while some fifteen thousand men beside stood
+ready to take part in the fight.
+
+In the month of May the Russians advanced, with such energy and in such
+force that the anterior works were soon taken, and the mountaineers
+found themselves obliged to take refuge in their final fortress of
+defence. The fight here was fierce and persistent. Step by step the
+Russians made their way, pushing their parallels against the intrenched
+works of their foes. Point after point was gained, and at length, in
+late August, the crisis came. A sudden charge carried them into the
+fort, and the defenders died where they stood, leaving only women and
+children to fall as prisoners into the Russians' hands.
+
+But Schamyl had disappeared. Seek as they would, the chief was not to be
+found. The fortress, the approaches, every nook and corner, were
+explored, but the famous warrior, for whom his foes would have given
+half their wealth, had utterly vanished, no one knew how. To make sure
+of his death they had scarcely left a fighting man alive, yet to their
+chagrin the redoubtable Schamyl was soon again in the field.
+
+How the brave mountaineer escaped is not known. Of the stories afloat,
+one is that he lay concealed until night in a rock refuge, and then
+managed to swim the river while some of his friends attracted the
+attention and drew the fire of the guards. All that can be said is that
+in September he reappeared, ready for new feats of arms, and was seen
+again at the head of a gallant body of mountain warriors.
+
+His head-quarters were now fixed at Dargo, a village in the heart of the
+mountains and in the midst of the primeval forest. But the chief had
+learned a lesson from his late experience. The Circassians were no match
+for the Russians behind fortifications. He resolved in the future to
+fight in a manner better suited to the habits of his followers, and to
+wear out the foe by a guerilla warfare.
+
+Three years passed before the Russians again sought to penetrate the
+mountains in force. Then General Grabbe, the victor at Akhulgo,
+attempted to repeat his success at Dargo. But the experience he gained
+proved to be of a less agreeable type. At the close of the first day's
+march, when the soldiers had eaten their evening meal and stretched
+their limbs to rest after a hard day's march, they were suddenly brought
+to their feet by a rattling volley of musketry from the surrounding
+woods. All night long the firing continued, no great damage being done
+in the darkness, but the soldiers being effectually deprived of their
+rest. When day dawned there was not a Circassian to be seen.
+
+Near noon, as the column wound through a ravine in the forest, the
+firing sharply recommenced, a murderous volley pouring upon the vanguard
+from behind the trees. The number of wounded became so great that there
+were not wagons enough for their transportation. Still General Grab be
+kept on, despite the advice of his officers, only to be attacked again
+at night as his weary men lay in a small open meadow among the hills.
+All night long the whiz of bullets drove away repose, and at every step
+of the next day's march the woods belched forth the leaden messengers of
+death.
+
+The goal of the march was near at hand. The little village of Dargo
+could be seen on a distant hill-top. But it was to be reached only by a
+path of death, and the Russian commander was at length forced to give
+the order to retreat. On seeing the column wheel and begin its backward
+march the Circassians grew wild with excitement and triumph. Slinging
+their rifles behind their backs, they rushed, sabre in hand, upon the
+enemy's centre, breaking through it again and again, while a deadly hail
+of rifle-shots still came from the woods. In the end, of the column of
+six thousand, two thousand were left dead, the remainder reaching the
+fortress from which they had set out in sorry plight.
+
+For several years Schamyl made Dargo his head-quarters. Not until 1845
+did the Russians succeed in taking it, their army now being ten thousand
+strong. But it was a village in flames they captured. Schamyl had fired
+it before leaving, and the Russians were so beset in coming and going
+that their empty conquest was made at the cost of three thousand of
+their men.
+
+In the spring of the following year the valiant chief repaid the enemy
+in part for these invasions of his country. He had now under his command
+no less than twenty thousand warriors, largely horsemen, and in the
+leafy month of May, taking advantage of a weakening of the Russian line,
+he dashed suddenly from the highlands for a raid in the neighboring
+country of the Kabardians.
+
+Two rivers flowed between the mountain ranges and the Kabardas, and two
+lines of hostile fortresses guarded the frontier, containing in all no
+less than seventy thousand men. Between the forts lay Cossack
+settlements, and beyond them the Kabardians, an armed and warlike race.
+Schamyl had no artillery, no fortresses, no dépôts of provisions and
+ammunition. All he could do was to make a quick dash and a hasty return.
+
+Down upon the Cossacks he rode, followed by his thousands of daring
+riders. Plundering their villages, he halted to take no forts except
+those that went down in the whirl of his coming. Before the garrisons in
+the strongholds fairly knew that he was among them he was gone; and
+while the Kabardians believed that he was lurking in the mountain
+depths, he suddenly dashed into their midst. Sixty populous Kabardian
+villages were plundered, and the mountaineers proudly refused to turn
+till they had watered their horses in the Kuban and even reached the
+more distant banks of the Laba.
+
+But how were they to return? Thousands of horsemen had gathered in the
+way. Long battalions of infantry had hurried to cut off the raiders on
+their retreat. Schamyl knew that he could not get back by the way he
+had come; but, turning southward, he galloped at headlong speed through
+the Cossack settlements in that quarter, and, with his cruppers laden
+with booty and his saddle-bows well furnished with food, evaded his foes
+and reached the mountains again. May seemed to bloom more richly than
+ever as the wild riders dashed proudly back to the doors of their homes
+and heard the glad shouts of joy that greeted their safe return.
+
+The whole story of the exploits of the famous Circassian chief is too
+extended and too full of stirring incidents to be here given even in
+epitome. It must suffice to say, in conclusion, that ten years after his
+escape from Akhulgo that stronghold was again attacked and taken by the
+Russians, and as before Schamyl mysteriously escaped. Completely
+baffled, nothing was left for the Russians but to wear out the chief and
+his people by continued invasions of their mountain land. Again and
+again their armies were beaten by their indomitable foe, but the
+continuance of the struggle slowly exhausted the land and its powers of
+resistance.
+
+The Circassians were helped during the Crimean War by the foes of
+Russia, who supplied them with arms and money, but after that war the
+Russians kept up the struggle with more energy than ever, and, by
+opening a road over the mountains, cut off a part of the country and
+compelled its submission. At length, in April, 1859, twenty-five years
+after the struggle began, Weden, Schamyl's stronghold at that time, was
+taken, after a seven weeks' siege. As before, the chief escaped, but the
+country was virtually subdued, and he had only a small band of
+followers left.
+
+For months afterwards his foes pursued him actively from fastness to
+fastness, determined to run him down, and at length, on September 6,
+1859, surprised him on the plateau of Gounib. Here the devoted band made
+a desperate resistance, not yielding until of the original four hundred
+only forty-seven remained alive. Schamyl, the lion of the Caucasus, was
+at length taken, after having cost the Russians uncounted losses in life
+and money.
+
+With his capture the independence of Circassia came to an end. It has
+since formed an integral part of the Russian empire, and its subjugation
+has opened the gateway to that vast expansion of Russia in Central Asia
+which since then has taken place. The captive chief had won the respect
+of his foes, and was honorably treated, being assigned a residence at
+Kaluga, in Central Russia, with an annual pension of five thousand
+dollars. He, like his countrymen, was a Mohammedan in faith, and removed
+to Mecca, in Arabia, in 1870, dying at Medina in the following year.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE._
+
+
+The Crimean War, brief as was the interval it occupied in the annals of
+time, was one replete with exciting events. And of these much the most
+brilliant was that which took place on the 25th of October, 1854, the
+famous "Charge of the Light Brigade," which Tennyson has immortalized in
+song, and which stands among the most dramatic incidents in the history
+of war. It was truthfully said by one of the French generals who
+witnessed it, "It is magnificent, but it is not war." We give it for its
+magnificence alone.
+
+[Illustration: MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA.]
+
+First let us depict the scene of that memorable event. The British and
+French armies lay in front of Balaklava, their base of supplies, facing
+towards Sebastopol. They occupied a mountain slope, which was strongly
+intrenched. A valley lay before them, and some two miles distant rose
+another mountain range, rocky and picturesque. In the valley between
+were four rounded hillocks, each crowned by an earthwork defended by a
+few hundred Turks. These outlying redoubts formed the central points of
+the famous battle of October 25.
+
+In the early morning of that day the Russians appeared in force,
+debouching from the mountain passes in front of the allied army. Six
+compact masses of infantry were seen, with a line of artillery in
+front, and on each flank a powerful cavalry force, while a cloud of
+mounted skirmishers filled the space between. Fronting the line of the
+allies were the Zouaves, crouching behind low earthworks, on the right
+the 93d Highlanders, and in front the British cavalry, composed of the
+Heavy Brigade, under General Scarlett, and, more in advance, the Light
+Brigade, under Lord Cardigan. Such were, in broad outline, the formation
+of the ground and the position of the actors in the drama of battle
+about to be played.
+
+The scene opened with an attack on the advanced redoubts. No. 1 was
+quickly taken, the Turks flying in haste before the fire of the Russian
+guns. No. 2 was evacuated in similar panic haste, the Cossack
+skirmishers riding among the fleeing Turks and cutting them mercilessly
+down. The guns of No. 2 were at once turned upon No. 3, whose garrison
+of Turks fired a few shots in return, and then, as in the previous
+cases, broke into open flight. After them dashed the Cossack light
+horsemen, flanking them to right and left, and many of the turbaned
+fugitives paid for their panic with their lives. The Russians had won in
+the first move of the game. They had taken three of the redoubts before
+a movement could be made for their support.
+
+Next a squadron of the Russian cavalry charged vigorously upon the
+Highlanders. But a deadly rifle fire met them as they came, volley after
+volley tearing gaps through their compact ranks, and in a moment more
+they had wheeled, opened their files, and were in full flight. "Bravo,
+Highlanders!" came up an exulting shout from the thousands of spectators
+behind.
+
+It was evident that Balaklava was the goal of the Russian movement, and
+the heavy cavalry were ordered into position to protect the approaches.
+As they moved towards the post indicated, a large body of the enemy's
+cavalry appeared over the ridge in front. These were _corps d'élite_,
+evidently, their jackets of light blue, embroidered with silver lace,
+giving them a holiday appearance. Behind them, as they galloped at an
+easy pace to the brow of the hill, appeared the keen glitter of
+lance-tips, and in the rear of the lancers came several squadrons of
+gray-coated dragoons as supports. As the serried ranks of horsemen
+advanced, their pace declined from a gallop to an easy trot, and from
+that almost to a halt. Their first line was double the length of the
+British, and three times as deep. Behind it came a second line, equally
+strong. They greatly outnumbered their foe.
+
+It was evident that the shock of a cavalry battle was at hand. The
+hearts of the spectators throbbed with excitement as they saw the Heavy
+Brigade suddenly break into a full gallop and rush headlong upon the
+enemy, making straight for the centre of the Russian line. On they went,
+Grays and Enniskilleners, in serried array, while their cheers and
+shouts rent the air as they struck the Russian line with an impetus
+which carried them through the close-drawn ranks. For a moment there was
+a glittering flash of sword-blades and a sharp clash of steel, and
+then, in thinned numbers, the charging dragoons appeared in the rear of
+the line, heading with unchecked speed towards the second Russian rank.
+
+The gallant horsemen seemed buried amid the multitude of the enemy. "God
+help them! they are lost!" came from more than one trembling lip and was
+echoed in many a fearful heart. The onset was terrific: the second line
+was broken like the first, and in its rear the red-coated riders
+appeared. But the first line of Russians, which had been rolled back
+upon its flanks by the impetuous rush, was closing up again, and the
+much smaller force in their midst was in serious peril of being
+swallowed up and crushed by sheer force of numbers.
+
+The crisis was a terrible one. But at the moment when the danger seemed
+greatest, two regiments of dragoons, the 4th and 5th, who had closely
+followed their fellows in the charge, broke furiously upon the enemy,
+dashing through and rending to fragments the already broken line. In a
+moment all was over. Less than five minutes had passed since the first
+shock, and already the Russian horse was in full flight, beaten by half
+its force. Wild cheers burst from the whole army as the victors drew
+back with almost intact ranks, their loss having been very small.
+
+Thus ended the famous "Charge of the Heavy Brigade." Its glory was to be
+eclipsed by that memorable "Charge of the Light Brigade" which became
+the theme of Tennyson's stirring ode, and the recital of which still
+causes many a heart to throb. We are indebted for our story of it to
+the thrilling account of W.H. Russell, the _Times_ correspondent, and a
+spectator of the event.
+
+As the Russian cavalry retired, their infantry fell back, leaving men in
+three of the captured redoubts, but abandoning the other points gained.
+They also had guns on the heights overlooking their position. About the
+hour of eleven, while the two armies thus faced each other, resting for
+an interval from the rush of conflict, there came to Lord Cardigan that
+fatal order which caused him to hurl his men into "the jaws of death."
+How it came to be given, how the misapprehension occurred, who was at
+fault in the error, has never been made clear. Captain Nolan, who
+brought the order, was one of the first to fall, and his story of the
+event died with him. All we know is that he handed Lord Lucan a written
+command to advance, and when asked, "Where are we to advance to?" he
+pointed to the Russian line, and said, "There are the enemy, and there
+are the guns," or words of similar meaning.
+
+It is a maxim in war that "cavalry shall never act without a support,"
+that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry guns," and
+that a line of cavalry should have some squadrons in column on its
+flanks, to guard it against a flank attack. None of these rules was
+carried out here, and Lord Lucan reluctantly gave the order to advance
+upon the guns, which Lord Cardigan as reluctantly accepted, for to any
+eye it was evident that it was an order to advance upon death. "Some one
+had blundered," and wisdom would have dictated the demand for a
+confirmation of the order. Valor suggested that it should be obeyed in
+all its blank enormity. Dismissing wisdom and yielding to valor, Lord
+Cardigan gave the word to advance, the brigade, scarcely a regiment in
+total strength, broke into a sudden gallop, and within a minute the
+devoted line was flying over the plain towards the enemy.
+
+The movement struck Lord Raglan, from whom the order was supposed to
+have emanated, with consternation. It struck the Russians with surprise.
+Surely that handful of men was not going to attack an army in position?
+Yet so it seemed as the Light Brigade dashed onward, the uplifted sabres
+glittering in the morning sun, the horses galloping at full speed
+towards the Russian guns, over a plain a mile and a half in width.
+
+Not far had they gone when a hot fire of cannon, musketry, and rifles
+belched from the Russian line. A flood of smoke and flame hid the
+opposing ranks, and shot and shell tore through the charging troops.
+Gaps were rent in their ranks, men and horses went down in rapid
+succession, and riderless horses were seen rushing wildly across the
+plain. The first line was broken. It was joined by the second. On went
+the brigade in a single line with unchecked speed. Though torn by the
+deadly fire of thirty guns, the brave riders rode steadily on into the
+smoke of the batteries, with cheers which too often changed in a breath
+to the cry of death.
+
+Through the clouds of smoke the horsemen could be seen dashing up to and
+between the guns, cutting down the gunners as they stood. Then,
+wheeling, they broke through a line of Russian infantry which sought to
+stay their advance, and scattered it to right and left. In a moment
+more, to the relief of those who had watched their career in an agony of
+emotion, they were seen riding back from the captured redoubt.
+
+Scattered and broken they came, some mounted, some on foot, all
+hastening towards the British lines. As they wheeled to retreat, a
+regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the
+8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rushed at the foe, cutting a passage
+through with great loss. The others had similarly to break their way
+through the columns that sought to envelop them. As they emerged from
+the cavalry fight, the gunners opened upon them again, cutting new lines
+of carnage through their decimated ranks. The Heavy Brigade had ridden
+to their relief, but could only cover the retreat of the slender remnant
+of the gallant band. In twenty-five minutes from the start not a British
+soldier, except the dead and dying, was left on the scene of this daring
+but mad exploit.
+
+Captain Nolan fell among the first; Lord Lucan was slightly wounded;
+Lord Cardigan had his clothes pierced by a lance; Lord Fitzgibbon
+received a fatal wound. Of the total brigade, some six hundred strong,
+the killed, wounded, and missing numbered four hundred and twenty-six.
+
+While this event was taking place, a body of French cavalry made a
+brilliant charge on a battery at the left, which was firing upon the
+devoted brigade, and cut down the gunners. But they could not get the
+guns off without support, and fell back with a loss of one-fourth their
+number. Thus ended that eventful day, in which the British cavalry had
+covered itself with glory, though it had only glory to show in return
+for its heavy loss.
+
+Such is the story as it stands in prose. Here is Tennyson's poetic
+version, which is full of the dash and daring of the wild ride.
+
+
+
+THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
+
+  Half a league, half a league,
+    Half a league onward,
+  All in the valley of Death
+    Rode the six hundred.
+    "Forward, the Light Brigade!
+  Charge for the guns!" he said:
+  Into the valley of Death
+        Rode the six hundred.
+
+  "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
+  Was there a man dismayed?
+  Not though the soldier knew
+    Some one had blundered:
+  Theirs not to make reply,
+  Theirs not to reason why,
+  Theirs but to do and die,
+  Into the valley of Death
+        Rode the six hundred.
+
+  Cannon to right of them,
+  Cannon to left of them,
+  Cannon in front of them,
+    Volleyed and thundered;
+  Stormed at with shot and shell,
+  Boldly they rode and well;
+  Into the jaws of Death,
+  Into the mouth of Hell,
+        Rode the six hundred.
+
+  Flashed all their sabres bare,
+  Flashed as they turned in air,
+  Sabring the gunners there,
+  Charging an army, while
+    All the world wondered:
+  Plunged in the battery-smoke
+  Right through the line they broke;
+  Cossack and Russian
+  Reeled from the sabre-stroke
+    Shattered and sundered.
+  Then they rode back, but not--
+        Not the six hundred.
+
+  Cannon to right of them,
+  Cannon to left of them,
+  Cannon behind them,
+    Volleyed and thundered;
+  Stormed at with shot and shell,
+  While horse and hero fell,
+  They that had fought so well
+  Came through the jaws of Death,
+  Back from the mouth of Hell,
+  All that was left of them,
+        Left of six hundred.
+
+  When can their glory fade?
+  Oh, the wild charge they made!
+    All the world wondered.
+  Honor the charge they made!
+  Honor the Light Brigade,
+        Noble six hundred!
+
+
+
+
+_THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL._
+
+
+The history of Russia has been largely a history of wars,--which indeed
+might be said with equal justice of most of the nations of Europe. In
+truth, history as written gives such prominence to warlike deeds, and
+glosses over so hastily the events of peace, that we seem to hear the
+roll of the drum rising from the written page itself, and to see the hue
+of blood crimsoning the printed sheets. This dominance of war in history
+is a striking instance of false perspective. Nations have not spent all
+or most of their lives in fighting, but the clash of the sword rings so
+loudly through the historic atmosphere that we scarcely hear the milder
+sounds of peace.
+
+So far as Russia is concerned, the torrent of war has rolled mainly
+towards the south. From those early days in which the Scythians drove
+back the Persian host and the early Varangians fiercely assailed the
+Greek empire, the relations of the north and the south have been
+strained, and a rapid succession of wars has been waged between the
+Russians and their varying foes, the Greeks, the Tartars, and the Turks.
+For ten centuries these wars have continued, with Constantinople for
+their ultimate goal, yet in all these ten centuries of conflict no
+Russian foot has ever been set in hostility within that ancient city's
+walls.
+
+Of these many wars, that which looms largest on the historic page is
+the fierce conflict of 1854-55, in which England and France came to
+Turkey's aid and Russia met with defeat on the soil of the Crimea. We
+have already given the most striking and dramatic incident of this
+famous Crimean war. It may be aptly followed by the final scene of all,
+the assault upon and capture of Sebastopol.
+
+The city of this name (Russian _Sevastopol_) is a seaport and fortress
+on the site of an old Tartar village near the southwest extremity of the
+Crimea, built by Russia as her naval station on the Black Sea. It
+possesses one of the finest natural harbors of the world, and formed the
+central scene of the Crimean War, the English and French armies
+besieging it with all the resources at their command. For nearly a year
+this stronghold of Russia was subjected to bombardment. Battles were
+fought in front of it, vigorous efforts for its capture and its relief
+were made, but in early September, 1855, it still remained in Russian
+hands, though frightfully torn and rent by the torrent of iron balls
+which had been poured into it with little cessation. But now the climax
+of the struggle was at hand, and all Europe stood in breathless anxiety
+awaiting the result.
+
+On September 5 the fiercest cannonade the city had yet felt was begun by
+the French, the English batteries quickly joining in. All that night and
+during the night of the 6th the bombardment was unceasingly continued,
+and during the 7th the cannons still belched their fiery hail upon the
+town. Everywhere the streets showed the terrible effect of this
+vigorous assault. Nearly every house in sight was rent asunder by the
+balls. Towards evening the great dock-yard shears caught fire, and
+burned fiercely in the high wind then prevailing. A large vessel in the
+harbor was next seen in flames, and burned to the water's edge. This
+bombardment was preliminary to a general assault, fixed for the 8th, and
+on the morning of that day it was resumed, as a mask to the coming
+charge upon the works.
+
+The Malakoff fort, the key to the Russian position, was to be assaulted
+by the French, who gathered in great force in its front during the
+night. The Redan, another strong fortification, was reserved for the
+British attack. In the trenches, facing the works, men were gathered as
+closely as they could be packed, with their nerves strung to an intense
+pitch as they awaited the decisive word. The hour of noon was fixed for
+the French assault, and as it approached a lull in the cannonade told
+that the critical moment was at hand.
+
+At five minutes to twelve the word was given, and like a swarm of angry
+bees the French sprang from their trenches and rushed in mad haste
+across the narrow space dividing them from the Malakoff. The place, a
+moment before quiet and apparently deserted, seemed suddenly alive. A
+few bounds took the active line of stormers across the perilous
+interval, and within a minute's time they were scrambling up the face
+and slipping through the embrasures of the long-defiant fort. On they
+came, stream after stream, battalion succeeding battalion, each dashing
+for the embrasures, and before the last of the stormers had left the
+trenches the flag of the foremost was waving in triumph above a bastion
+of the fort.
+
+The Russians had been taken by surprise. Very few of them were in the
+fort. The destructive cannonade had driven them to shelter. It was in
+the hands of the French by the time their foes were fully aware of what
+had occurred. Then a determined attempt was made to recapture it, and
+the Russian general hurled his men in successive storming columns upon
+the work, vainly endeavoring to drive out its captors. From noon until
+seven in the evening these furious efforts continued, thousands of the
+Russians falling in the attempt. In the end the exhausted legions were
+withdrawn, the French being left in possession of the work they had so
+ably won and so valiantly held.
+
+Meanwhile the British were engaged in their share of the assault. The
+moment the French tricolor was seen waving from the parapet of the
+Malakoff four signal rockets were sent up, and the dash on the Redan
+began. It was made in less force than the French had used, and with a
+very different result. The Russians were better prepared, and the space
+to be crossed was wider, the assaulting column being rent with musketry
+as it dashed over the interval between the trenches and the fort. On
+dashed the assailants, through the abatis, which had been torn to
+fragments by the artillery fire, into the ditch, and up the face of the
+work. The parapet was scaled almost without opposition, the few Russians
+there taking shelter behind their breastworks in the rear, whence they
+opened fire on the assailing force.
+
+At this point, instead of continuing the charge, as their officers
+implored them to do, the men halted and began loading and firing, a work
+in which they were greatly at a disadvantage, since the Russians
+returned the fire briskly from behind their shelters. Every moment
+reinforcements rushed in from the town and added to the weight of the
+enemy's fire. The assailants were falling rapidly, particularly the
+officers, who were singled out by their foes.
+
+For an hour and a half the struggle continued. By that time the Russians
+had cleared the Redan, but the British still held the parapets. Then a
+rush from within was made, and the assailants were swept back and driven
+through the embrasures or down the face of the parapet into the ditch,
+where their foes followed them with the bayonet.
+
+A short, sharp, and bloody struggle here took place. Step by step the
+band of Britons was forced back by the enemy, those who fled for the
+trenches having to run the gauntlet of a hot fire, those who remained
+having to defend themselves against four times their force. The attempt
+had hopelessly failed, and of those in the assailing column
+comparatively few escaped. The day's work had been partly a success and
+partly a failure. The French had succeeded in their assault. The English
+had failed in theirs, and lost heavily in the attempt.
+
+What the final result was to be no one could tell. Silence followed the
+day's struggle, and night fell upon a comparatively quiet scene. About
+eleven o'clock a new act in the drama began, with a terrific explosion
+that shook the ground like an earthquake. By midnight several other
+explosions vibrated through the air. Here and there flames were seen,
+half hidden by the cloud of dust which rose before the strong wind. As
+the night waned, the fires grew and spread, while tremendous explosions
+from time to time told of startling events taking place in the town.
+What was going on under the shroud of night? The early dawn solved the
+mystery. The Russians were abandoning the city they had so long and so
+gallantly held.
+
+The Malakoff was the key of their position. Its loss had made the city
+untenable. The failure of the attempt to recover it was followed by
+immediate preparations for evacuation. The gray light of the coming day
+showed a stream of soldiers marching across the bridge to the north
+side. The fleet had disappeared. It lay sunk in the harbor's depths.
+
+The retreat had begun at eight o'clock of the evening before, soon after
+the failure to retake the Malakoff. But it was a Moscow the Russian
+general proposed to leave his foes. Combustibles had been stored in the
+principal houses. About two o'clock flames began to rise from these, and
+at the same hour all the vessels of the fleet except the steamers were
+scuttled and sunk. The steamers were retained to aid in carrying off the
+stores. A terrific explosion behind the Redan at four o'clock shook the
+whole camp. Four others equally startling followed. Battery after
+battery was hurled into the air by the explosion of the magazines.
+Before seven o'clock the last of the Russians had crossed the bridge to
+the north side, which was uninvested by the allies, and the hill-sides
+opposite the city were alive with troops. Smaller explosions followed.
+From a steamer in the harbor clouds of dense smoke arose. Flames spread
+rapidly, and by ten o'clock the whole city was in a blaze, while vast
+columns of smoke rose far into the skies, lurid in the glare of the
+flames below. The sounds of battle had ceased. Those of conflagration
+and ruin succeeded. The final flames were those sent up from the
+steamers, which were set on fire when the work of transporting stores
+had ceased.
+
+Great was the surprise throughout the camp that Sunday morning when the
+news spread that Sebastopol was on fire and the enemy in full retreat.
+Most of the soldiers, worn out with their desperate day's work, slept
+through the explosions and woke to learn that the city so long fought
+for was at last theirs--or so much of it as the flames were likely to
+leave.
+
+About midnight, attracted by the dead silence, some volunteers had crept
+into an embrasure of the Redan and found the place deserted by the foe.
+As soon as dawn appeared, the French Zouaves began to steal from their
+trenches into the burning town, heedless of the flames, the explosions,
+and the danger of being shot by some lurking foe, the desire for plunder
+being stronger in their minds than dread of danger. Soon the red
+uniforms of these daring marauders could be seen in the streets,
+revealed by the flames, and the day had but fairly dawned when men came
+staggering back laden with spoils, Russian relics being offered for sale
+in the camps while the Russian columns were still marching from the
+deserted city. The sailors were equally alert, and could soon be seen
+bearing more or less worthless lumber from the streets, often useless
+stuff which they had risked their lives to gain.
+
+The allies had won a city in ruins; but they had defeated the Russians
+at every encounter, in field and in fort, and the Muscovite resources
+were exhausted. The war must soon cease. What followed was to complete
+the destruction which the torch had began. The splendid docks which
+Russia had constructed at immense cost were mined and blown up. The
+houses which had escaped the fire were robbed of doors, windows, and
+furniture to add to the comfort of the huts which were built for winter
+quarters by the troops. As for the scene of ruin, disaster, and death
+within the city, it was frightful, and it was evident that the Russians
+had clung to it with a death-grip until it was impossible to remain. It
+was an absolute ruin from which the Sebastopol of to-day began its
+growth.
+
+
+
+
+_AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE._
+
+
+From the days of Rurik down, a single desire--a single passion, we may
+say--has had a strong hold upon the Russian heart, the desire to possess
+Constantinople, that grand gate-city between Europe and Asia, with its
+control of the avenue to the southern seas. While it continued the
+capital of the Greek empire it was more than once assailed by Russian
+armies. After it became the metropolis of the Turkish dominion renewed
+attempts were made. But Greek and Turk alike valiantly held their own,
+and the city of the straits defied its northern foes. Through the
+centuries war after war with Turkey was fought, the possession of
+Constantinople their main purpose, but the Moslem clung to his capital
+with fierce pertinacity, and not until the year 1878 did he give way and
+a Russian army set eyes on the city so long desired.
+
+In 1875 an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two
+Christian provinces under Turkish rule. The rebellious sentiment spread
+to Bulgaria, and in 1876 Turkey began a policy of repression so cruel as
+to make all Europe quiver with horror. Thousands of its most savage
+soldiery were let loose upon the Christian populations south of the
+Balkans, with full license to murder and burn, and a frightful carnival
+of torture and massacre began. More than a hundred towns were destroyed,
+and their inhabitants treated with revolting inhumanity. In the month of
+June, 1876, about forty thousand Bulgarians, of all ages and sexes, were
+put to death, many of the children being sold as slaves in the Turkish
+cities.
+
+Of all the powers of Europe, Russia was the only one that took arms to
+avenge these slaughtered populations. England stood impassive, the other
+nations held aloof, but Alexander II. called out his troops, and once
+more the Russian battalions were set _en route_ for the Danube, with
+Constantinople as their ultimate goal.
+
+In June, 1877, the Danube was crossed and the Russian host entered
+Bulgaria, the Turks retiring as they advanced. But the march of invasion
+was soon arrested. The Balkan Mountains, nature's line of defence for
+Turkey, lay before the Russian troops, and on the high-road to its
+passes stood the town of Plevna, a fortress which must be taken before
+the mountains could safely be crossed. The works were very strong, and
+behind them lay Osman Pacha, one of the boldest and bravest of the
+Turkish soldiers, with a gallant little army under his command. The
+defence of this city was the central event of the war. From July to
+September the Russians sought its capture, making three desperate
+assaults, all of which were repulsed. In October the city was invested
+with an army of forty thousand men, under the intrepid General
+Skobeleff, with a determination to win. But Osman held out with all his
+old stubbornness, and continued his unflinching defence until
+starvation forced him to yield. He had lost his city, but had held back
+the Russian army for nearly half a year and won the admiration of the
+world.
+
+The fall of Plevna set free the large Russian army that had been tied up
+by its siege. What should be done with these troops, more than one
+hundred thousand strong? The Balkans, whose gateways Plevna had closed,
+now lay open before them, but winter was at hand, winter with its frosts
+and snows. An attempt to cross the mountains at this time, even if
+successful, would bring them before strong Turkish fortresses in
+midwinter, with a chain of mountains in the rear, over which it would be
+impossible to maintain a line of supplies. The prudent course would have
+been to put the men into winter quarters at the foot of the Balkans on
+the north and wait for spring before venturing upon the mountain passes.
+
+The Grand Duke Nicholas, however, was not governed by such
+considerations of prudence, but determined, at all hazards, to strike
+the Turks before they had time to reorganize and recuperate. The army
+was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the
+Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements
+is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold,
+the deep snow, the natural difficulties of the passes, the efforts of
+the enemy, all failed to check the Russian advance. Gourko forced his
+way through all opposition, took the powerful fortress of Sophia without
+a blow, and routed an army of fifty thousand men on his march to
+Philippopolis. Radetzky did even better, since he captured the Turkish
+army defending the Shipka Pass, thirty-six thousand strong. The whole
+Turkish defence of the Balkans had gone down with a crash, and the
+Russians found themselves on the south side of the mountains with the
+enemy everywhere on the retreat, a broken and demoralized host.
+
+Meanwhile what had become of the Turkish population of the Balkans and
+Roumelia? There were none of them to be seen; no fugitives were passed;
+not a Turk was visible in Sophia; the whole region traversed up to
+Philippopolis seemed to have only a Christian population. But on leaving
+the last-named city the situation changed, and a terrible scene of
+bloodshed, death, and misery met the eyes of the marching hosts. It was
+now easy to see what had become of the Turks: they were here in
+multitudes in full flight for their lives. The Bulgarians had avenged
+themselves bitterly on their late oppressors. Dead bodies of men and
+animals, broken carts, heaps of abandoned household goods, and tatters
+of clothing seemed to mark every step of the way. Fierce and terrible
+had been the struggle, dreadful the result, Turks and Bulgarians lying
+thickly side by side in death. Here appeared the bodies of Bulgarian
+peasants horrible with gaping wounds and mutilations, the marks of
+Turkish vengeance; there beside them lay corpses of dignified old Turks,
+their white beards stained with their blood.
+
+While the men had died from violence, the women and children had
+perished from cold and hunger, many of them being frozen to death, the
+faces and tiny hands of dead children visible through the shrouding
+snows. The living were dragging their slow way onward through this
+ghastly array of the dead, in a seemingly endless procession of wagons,
+drawn by half starved oxen, and bearing sick and feeble human beings and
+loads of household goods. Beside the laden vehicles the wretched,
+famine-stricken, worn-out fugitives walked, pushing forward in unceasing
+fear of their merciless Bulgarian foes.
+
+Farther on the scene grew even more terrible. The road was strewn with
+discarded bedding, carpets, and other household goods. In one village
+were visible the bodies of some Turkish soldiers whom the Bulgarians had
+stoned to death, the corpses half covered with the heaps of stones and
+bricks which had been hurled at them.
+
+Beyond this was reached a vast mass of closely packed wagons extending
+widely over roads and fields, not fewer than twenty thousand in all. The
+oxen were still in the yokes, but the people had vanished, and Bulgarian
+plunderers were helping themselves unresisted to the spoil. The great
+company, numbering fully two hundred thousand, had fled in terror to the
+mountains from some Russian cavalry who had been fired upon by the
+escort of the fugitives and were about to fire in return. Abandoning
+their property, the able-bodied had fled in panic fear, leaving the old,
+the sick, and the infants to perish in the snow, and their cherished
+effects to the hands of Bulgarian pilferers.
+
+In advance lay Adrianople, the ancient capital of Turkey and the second
+city in the empire. Here, if anywhere, the Turks should have made a
+stand. But news came that this stronghold had been abandoned by its
+garrison, that the wildest panic prevailed, and that the Turkish
+population of the city and the surrounding villages was in full flight.
+At daylight of the 20th of January the city was entered by the cavalry,
+and on the 22d Skobeleff marched in with his infantry, at once
+despatching the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The defence
+of Adrianople had been well provided for by an extensive system of
+earthworks, but not an effort was made to hold it, and an incredible
+panic seemed everywhere to have seized the Turks.
+
+Russia had almost accomplished the task for which it had been striving
+during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks
+still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every
+shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, and their powers
+of resistance to be at an end. They were in a state of utter
+demoralization and ready to give way to Russia at all points and accept
+almost any terms they could obtain. Had they decided to continue the
+fight, they still possessed a position famous for its adaptation to
+defence, behind which it was possible to hold at bay all the power of
+Russia.
+
+This was the celebrated position of Buyak-Tchek-medje, a defensive line
+twenty-five miles from Constantinople and of remarkable military
+strength. The peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora is
+at this point only twenty miles wide, and twelve of these miles are
+occupied by broad lakes which extend inland from either shore. Of the
+remaining distance, about half is made up of swamps which are almost or
+quite impassable, while dense and difficult thickets occupy the rest of
+the line. Behind this stretch of lake, swamp, and thicket there extends
+from sea to sea a ridge from four hundred to seven hundred feet in
+height, the whole forming a most admirable position for defence. This
+ridge had been fortified by the Turks with redoubts, trenches, and
+rifle-pits, which, fully garrisoned and mounted with guns, might have
+proved impregnable to the strongest force. The thirty thousand men
+within them could have given great trouble to the whole Russian army,
+and double that number might have completely arrested its march. Yet
+this great natural stronghold was given up without a blow, signed away
+with a stroke of the pen.
+
+[Illustration: THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.]
+
+On January 31 an armistice was signed, one of whose terms was that this
+formidable defensive line should be evacuated by the Turks, who were to
+retire to an inner line, while the Russians were to occupy a position
+about ten miles distant. It was no consideration for Turkey that now
+kept the Russians outside the great capital, but dread of the powers of
+Europe, which jealously distrusted an increase of the power of Russia,
+and were bent on saving Turkey from the hands of the czar.
+
+On February 12 an event took place that threatened ominous results. The
+British fleet forced the passage of the Dardanelles and moved upon
+Constantinople, on the pretence of protecting the lives of British
+subjects in that city. As soon as news of this movement reached St.
+Petersburg the emperor telegraphed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, giving
+him authority to march a part of his army into Constantinople, on the
+same plea that the British had made. In response the grand duke demanded
+of the sultan the right to occupy a part of the environs of his capital
+with Russian soldiers, the negotiations ending with the permission to
+occupy the village of San Stefano, on the Sea of Marmora, about six
+miles from the walls of the threatened city.
+
+What would be the end of it all was difficult to foresee. On the waters
+of the city floated the English iron-clads, with their mute threat of
+war; around the walls Turkish troops were rapidly throwing up
+earthworks; leading officers in the Russian army chafed at the thought
+of stopping so near their longed-for goal, and burned with the desire to
+make a final end of the empire of the Turks and add Constantinople to
+the dominions of the czar. Yet though thus, as it were, on the edge of a
+volcano, their ordinary policy of delay and hesitation was shown by the
+Turkish diplomats, and the treaty of peace was not concluded and signed
+until the 3d of March. The Russians had used their controlling position
+with effect, and the treaty largely put an end to Turkish dominion in
+Europe.
+
+The news of the signing was received with cheers of enthusiasm by the
+Russian army, drawn up on the shores of the inland sea, the
+Preobrajensky, the famous regiment of Peter the Great, holding the post
+of honor. Scarce a rifle-shot distant, crowding in groups the crests of
+the neighboring hills, and deeply interested spectators of the scene,
+appeared numbers of their late opponents. The news received, the
+cheering battalions wheeled into column, and past the grand duke went
+the army in rapid review, the march still continuing after darkness had
+descended on the scene.
+
+And thus ended the war, with the Russians within sight of the walls of
+that city which for so many centuries they had longed and struggled to
+possess. Only for the threatening aspect of the powers of Europe the
+Ottoman empire would have ended then and there, and the Turk, "encamped
+in Europe," would have ended forever his rule over Christian realms.
+
+
+
+
+_THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK._
+
+
+In 1861 Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, signed a proclamation for the
+emancipation of the Russian serfs, giving freedom by a stroke of the pen
+to over fifty millions of human beings. In 1881, twenty years
+afterwards, when, as there is some reason to believe, he was about to
+grant a constitution and summon a parliament for the political
+emancipation of the Russian people, he fell victim to a band of
+revolutionists, and the thought of granting liberty to his people
+perished with him.
+
+This assassination was the work of the secret society known as the
+Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to
+saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and
+their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies _nothingness_. It comes from
+the same root as _annihilate_, and annihilation of despots appears to
+have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This
+society reached its culmination in the reign of Alexander II., and,
+despite the fact that he proved himself one of the mildest and most
+public-spirited of the czars, he was chosen as the victim of the theory
+of obtaining political regeneration by terror.
+
+Threats preceded deeds. The final years of the emperor's life were made
+wretched through fear and anxiety. His ministers were killed by the
+revolutionists. Some of the guards placed about his person became
+victims of the secret band. Letters bordered with black and threatening
+the emperor's life were found among his papers or his clothes. An
+explosive powder placed in his handkerchief injured his sight for a
+time; a box of asthma pills sent him proved to contain a small but
+dangerous infernal machine. He grew haggard through this constant peril;
+his hair whitened, his form shrank, his nerves were unstrung.
+
+In February, 1879, Prince Krapotkin, governor-general of Kharkoff, was
+killed by a pistol-shot fired into his carriage window. In April a
+Nihilist fired five pistol-shots at the czar. In June the Nihilists
+resolved to use dynamite with the purpose of destroying the
+governors-general of several provinces and the czar and heir-apparent.
+Among their victims was the chief of police, while two of his successors
+barely escaped death.
+
+The first attempt to kill the czar by dynamite took the form of
+excavating mines under three railroads on one of which he was expected
+to travel. Of these mines only one was exploded. A house on the Moscow
+railroad, not far from that city, was purchased by the conspirators, and
+an underground passage excavated from its cellar to the roadway. Here
+auger-holes were bored upward in which were inserted iron pipes
+communicating with dynamite stored below. On the day when the emperor
+was expected to pass, a woman Nihilist named Sophia Perovskya stood
+within view of the track, with instructions to wave her handkerchief to
+the conspirators in the house at the proper moment. The pilot train
+which always preceded the imperial train was allowed to pass. The other
+train drew up to take water, and was wrecked by the explosion of the
+mine. Fortunately for the emperor, he was in the pilot train and out of
+danger.
+
+Some of the participants in this affair were arrested, but their chief,
+a German named Hartmann, escaped. Despite the utmost efforts of the
+police, he made his way safely out of Russia, aided by Nihilists at
+every step, sometimes travelling on foot, at other times in peasants'
+carts, finally crossing the frontier and reaching the nest of
+conspirators at Geneva. Here he is supposed to have taken part with
+others in devising a new and what proved a fatal plot. Meanwhile a fresh
+attempt was made on the life of the czar.
+
+On February 5, 1880, Alexander II. was to entertain at dinner in the
+Winter Palace a royal visitor, Prince Alexander of Hesse. Fortunately,
+the czar was detained for a short time, and the hour fixed for the
+dinner had passed when the party proceeded along the corridor to the
+dining-hall. The brief delay probably saved their lives, for at that
+moment a tremendous explosion took place, wrecking the dining-hall and
+completely demolishing the guard-room, which was filled with dead and
+dying victims, sixty-seven in all. It proved that a Nihilist had
+obtained employment among some carpenters engaged in repairs within the
+palace, and had succeeded in storing dynamite in a tool-chest in his
+room. He escaped, and was never seen in St. Petersburg again. Two days
+later the corpse of a murdered policeman was found on the frozen surface
+of the Neva, a paper pinned to his breast threatening with death every
+governor-general except Melikoff, the successor of the murdered
+Krapotkin.
+
+Their failures had proved so nearly successes that the Nihilists were
+rather encouraged than depressed. New plans followed the failure of old
+ones. It was proposed to poison the emperor and his son, the murder to
+be followed by a revolt of the disaffected in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
+the seizure of the palaces, and the establishment of a constitutional
+government. This plan, however, was given up as not likely to have the
+"_great moral effect_" which the Nihilists hoped to produce.
+
+A Nihilist student in St. Petersburg had sent to the Paris committee of
+the society a recipe for a formidable explosive of his invention. A
+quantity of this dangerous substance was manufactured in France and
+secretly conveyed to St. Petersburg, where bombs to contain it had been
+prepared. The plans of the conspirators were now very carefully laid.
+They did not propose to fail again, if care could insure success. A
+cheesemonger's shop was opened on a street leading to the palace, under
+which a mine was laid to the centre of the carriage-way, it being
+proposed to kill the czar when out driving. If his carriage should take
+another route and follow the street leading from the Catharine Canal, it
+was arranged to wreck it with bombs flung by hand. The death of the czar
+was the sole thing in view. The conspirators seemed willing freely to
+sacrifice their own lives to that object. As regards the mine, it was so
+heavily charged with dynamite that its explosion would have wrecked a
+great part of the Anitchkoff Palace while killing the czar.
+
+How the explosive material was conveyed from Paris to Russia is a
+mystery which was never successfully traced by the police. The utmost
+care was taken at the frontiers to prevent the entrance of any
+suspicious substance. For a year or two even the tea that came on the
+backs of camels from China was carefully searched, while all travellers
+were closely examined, and all articles coming from Western Europe were
+almost pulled to pieces in the minuteness of the scrutiny. The explosive
+is said to have looked like golden syrup, and to have been sweet to the
+taste, though acrid in its after-effects. A drop or two let fall on a
+hot stove flashed up in a brilliant sheet of flame, though without smell
+or noise.
+
+[Illustration: THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST.]
+
+Among the conspirators, one of the most useful was Sophia Perovskya, the
+woman already named. She was young, of noble family, handsome, educated,
+and fascinating in manner. Her beauty and high connections gave her
+opportunities which none of her fellow-conspirators enjoyed, and by her
+influence over men of rank and position she was enabled to learn many of
+the secrets of the court and to become familiar with all the precautions
+taken by the police to insure the safety of the czar. There was another
+woman in the plot, a Jewish girl named Hesse Helfman. Eight men
+constituted the remainder of the party.
+
+The fatal day came in March, 1881. On the morning of the 12th Melikoff,
+minister of the interior, told the czar that a man connected with the
+railroad explosion had just been arrested, on whose person were found
+papers indicating a new plot. He earnestly entreated Alexander to avoid
+exposing himself. On the next morning the czar went early to mass, and
+subsequently accompanied his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, to inspect
+his body-guard. Sophia Perovskya had been apprised of these intended
+movements, and informed the chief conspirators, who at once determined
+that the deed should be done that day. The lover of Hesse Helfman had
+been arrested and had at once shot himself. Papers of an incriminating
+character had been found in her house, and it was feared that further
+delay might frustrate the plot, so that the purpose of waiting until the
+czar and his son might be slain together was abandoned. It was not known
+which street the czar would take. If he took the one, the mine was to be
+exploded; if the other, the bombs were to be thrown.
+
+Two men, Resikoff and Elnikoff, the latter a young man completely under
+Sophia's influence, were to throw the bombs. She took a position from
+which she might signal the approach of the carriage. As it proved, the
+Catharine Canal route was taken. The carriage approached. Everything
+wore its usual aspect. There was nothing to excite suspicion. Suddenly a
+dark object was hurled from the sidewalk through the air and a
+tremendous report was heard. Resikoff had flung his bomb. A baker's boy
+and the Cossack footman of the czar were instantly killed, but the
+intended victim was unhurt and the horses were only slightly wounded.
+The coachman, who had escaped injury, wished to drive onward at speed
+out of the quickly gathering crowd, but Alexander, who had seen his
+footman fall, insisted on getting out of the carriage to assist him. It
+was a fatal resolve. As his feet touched the ground, Elnikoff flung his
+bomb. It exploded at the feet of the czar with such force as to throw
+men many yards distant to the ground, but proved fatal to only two,
+Elnikoff, who was instantly killed, and Alexander, who was mortally
+wounded, his lower limbs and the lower part of his body being
+frightfully shattered. He survived for a few hours in dreadful pain.
+
+Terrible as was the crime, it was worse than useless. The proposed
+rising did not take place. A new czar immediately succeeded the dead
+one. The hoped-for constitution perished with him upon whom it depended.
+The Nihilists, instead of gaining liberal institutions, had set back the
+clock of reform for a generation, and perhaps much longer. Of the
+conspirators, one of the men was killed, one shot himself, and two
+escaped; the other four were executed. Of the women, Sophia was
+executed. She knew too much, and those who had betrayed to her the
+secrets of the court, fearing that she might implicate them, privately
+urged the new czar to sign her death-warrant. She held her peace, and
+died without a word.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA._
+
+
+The Emperor of Russia, lord of his people, absolute autocrat over some
+one hundred and twenty-five millions of the human race, to-day stands
+master not only of half the soil of Europe but of more than a third of
+the far greater continent of Asia. To gain some definite idea of the
+total extent of this vast empire it may suffice to say that it is
+considerably more than double the size of Europe, and nearly as large as
+the whole of North America. The tales already given will serve to show
+how the European empire of Russia gradually spread outward from its
+early home in the city and state of Novgorod until it covered half the
+continent. How Russia made its way into Asia has been described in part
+in the story of the conquest of Siberia. The remainder needs to be told.
+
+[Illustration: DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA.]
+
+It is now more than three hundred years since the Cossack robber Yermak
+invaded Siberia, and more than two centuries since that vast section of
+Northern Asia was added to the Russian empire. The great river Amur,
+flowing far through Eastern Siberia to the Pacific, was discovered in
+1643 by a party of Cossack hunters, who launched their boats on this
+magnificent stream and sailed down it to the sea. It was Chinese soil
+through which it ran, its waters flowing through the province of
+Manchuria, the native land of the emperors of China.
+
+But to this the Russian pioneers paid little heed. They invaded Chinese
+soil, built forts on the Amur, and for forty years war went on. In the
+end they were driven out, and China came to her own again.
+
+Thus matters stood until the year 1854. Six years before, an officer
+with four Cossacks had been sent down the river to spy out the land.
+They never returned, and not a word could be had from China as to their
+fate. In the year named the Russians explored the river in force. China
+protested, but did not act, and the whole vast territory north of the
+stream was proclaimed as Russian soil. Forts were built to make good the
+claim, and China helplessly yielded to the gigantic steal. Since then
+Russia has laid hands on an extensive slice of Chinese territory which
+lies on the Pacific coast far to the south of the Amur, and has forcibly
+taken possession of the Japanese island of Saghalien. Her avaricious
+eyes are fixed on the kingdom of Corea, and the whole of Manchuria may
+yet become Russian soil.
+
+Siberia is by no means the inhospitable land of ice which the name
+suggests to our minds. That designation applies well to its northern
+half, but not to the Siberia of the south. Here are vast fertile plains,
+prolific in grain, which need only the coming railroad facilities to
+make this region the granary of the Russian empire. The great rivers and
+the numerous lakes of the country abound in valuable fish; large forests
+of useful timber are everywhere found; fur-bearing animals yield a rich
+harvest in the icy regions of the north; the mineral wealth is immense,
+including iron, gold, silver, platinum, copper, and lead; precious
+stones are widely found, among them the diamond, emerald, topaz, and
+amethyst; and of ornamental stones may be named malachite, jasper, and
+porphyry, from which magnificent vases, tables, and other articles of
+ornament are made. The region on the Amur and its tributaries is
+particularly valuable and rich, and a great population is destined in
+the future to find an abiding-place in this vast domain.
+
+South of Siberia lies another immense extent of territory, stretching
+across the continent, and comprising the great upland plain known as the
+steppes. On this broad expanse rain rarely falls, and its surface is
+half a desert, unfit for agriculture, but yielding pasturage to vast
+herds of cattle, horses, and sheep, the property of wandering tribes.
+Here is the great home of the nomad, and from these broad plains
+conquering hordes have poured again and again over the civilized world.
+From here came the Huns, who devastated Europe in Roman days; the Turks,
+who later overthrew the Eastern Empire; and the Mongols, who, led by
+Genghis and Tamerlane, committed frightful ravages in Asia and for
+centuries lorded it over Russia.
+
+To-day the greater part of this vast territory belongs to China. But
+westward from Chinese Mongolia extends a broad region of the steppes,
+bordering upon Europe on the west, and traversed by numerous wandering
+tribes known by the name of the Kirghis hordes. For many years Russia,
+the great annexer, has been quietly extending her power over the domain
+of the hordes, until her rule has become supreme in the land of the
+Kirghis, which in all maps of Europe is now given as part of Siberia.
+
+One by one military posts have been established in this semi-desert
+realm, the wandering tribes being at first cajoled and in the end
+defied. The glove of silk has been at first extended to the tribes, but
+within it the hand of iron has always held fast its grasp. The
+simple-minded chiefs have easily been brought over to the Russian
+schemes. Some of them have been won by money and soft words; others by
+some mark of distinction, such as a medal, a handsome sabre, a cocked
+hat or a gold-laced coat. Rather than give these up some of them would
+have sold half the steppes. They have signed papers of which they did
+not understand a word, and given away rights of whose value they were
+utterly ignorant.
+
+Thus insidiously has the power of the emperor made its way into the
+steppes, fort after fort being built, those in the rear being abandoned
+as the country became subdued and new forts arose in the south. Cities
+have risen around some of these forts, of which may be mentioned Kopal
+and Vernoje, which to-day have thousands of inhabitants.
+
+"Russia is thus surrounding the Kirgheez hordes with civilization," says
+the traveller Atkinson, "which will ultimately bring about a moral
+revolution in this country. Agriculture and other branches of industry
+will be introduced by the Russian peasant, than whom no man can better
+adapt himself to circumstances."
+
+Michie, another traveller, gives in brief the general method of the
+Russian advance. It will be seen to be similar to that by which the
+Indian lands of the western United States were gained. "The Cossacks at
+Russian stations make raids on their own account on the Kirgheez, and
+subject them to rough treatment. An outbreak occurs which it requires a
+military force to subdue. An expedition for this purpose is sent every
+year to the Kirgheez steppes. The Russian outposts are pushed farther
+and farther south, more disturbances occur, and so the front is year by
+year extended, on pretence of keeping peace. This has been the system
+pursued by the Russian government in all its aggressions in Asia."
+
+But this does not tell the whole story of the Russian advance in Asia.
+South of the Kirghis steppes lies another great and important territory,
+known as Central Asia, or Turkestan. Much of this region is absolute
+desert, wide expanses of sand, waterless and lifeless, on which to halt
+is to court death. Only swift-moving troops of horsemen, or caravans
+carrying their own supplies, dare venture upon these arid plains. But
+within this realm of sand lie a number of oases whose soil is well
+watered and of the highest fertility. Two mighty rivers traverse these
+lands, the Amu-Daria--once known as the Oxus--and the
+Syr-Daria--formerly the Jaxartes,--both of which flow into the Sea of
+Aral. It is to the waters of these streams that the fertility of _the_
+oases is due, they being diverted from their course to irrigate the
+land.
+
+Three of the oases are of large size. Of these Khiva has the Caspian
+Sea as its western boundary, Bokhara lies more to the east, while
+northeast of the latter extends Khokand. The deserts surrounding these
+oases have long been the lurking-places of the Turkoman nomads, a race
+of wild and warlike horsemen, to whom plunder is as the breath of life,
+and who for centuries kept Persia in alarm, carrying off hosts of
+captives to be sold as slaves.
+
+The religion of Arabia long since made its way into this land, whose
+people are fanatical Mohammedans. Its leading cities, Khiva, Bokhara,
+and Samarcand, have for many centuries been centres of bigotry. For ages
+Turkestan remained a land of mystery. No European was sure for a moment
+of life if he ventured to cross its borders. Vambéry, the traveller,
+penetrated it disguised as a dervish, after years of study of the
+language and habits of the Mohammedans, yet he barely escaped with life.
+It is pleasant to be able to say that this state of affairs has ceased.
+Russia has curbed the violence of the fanatics and the nomads, and the
+once silent and mysterious land is now traversed by the iron horse.
+
+The first step of Russian invasion in this quarter was made in 1602. In
+that year a Russian force captured the city of Khiva, but was not able
+to hold its prize. In 1703, during the reign of Peter the Great, the
+Khan of Khiva placed his dominions under Russian rule, and during the
+century Khiva continued friendly, but after the opening of the
+nineteenth century it became bitterly hostile.
+
+Meanwhile Russia was making its way towards the Caspian and Aral seas.
+In 1835 a fort was built on the eastern shore of the Caspian and
+several armed steamers were placed on its waters. Four years later war
+broke out with Khiva, and the khan was forced to give up some Russian
+prisoners he had seized. In 1847 a fort was built on the Sea of Aral, at
+the mouth of the Syr-Daria, whose waters formed the only safe avenue to
+the desert-girdled khanate of Khokand. Steamers were brought in sections
+from Sweden, being carried with great labor across the desert to the
+inland sea, on whose banks they were put together and launched. Armed
+with cannon, they quickly made their appearance on the navigable waters
+of the Syr.
+
+The Amu-Daria is not navigable, so that the Syr at that time formed the
+only ready channel of approach to Khokand, and from this to the other
+khanates, none of which could be otherwise reached without a long and
+dangerous desert march. Russia thus, by planting herself at the mouth of
+the Syr, had gained the most available position from which to begin a
+career of conquest in Central Asia.
+
+War necessarily followed these steps of invasion. In 1853 the Russians
+besieged and captured the fort of Ak Mechet, on the Syr, thought by its
+holders to be impregnable. Up the river, bordered on each side by a
+narrow band of vegetation from which a desert spread away, the Russians
+gradually advanced, finally planting a military post within thirty-two
+miles of Tashkend, the military key of Central Asia.
+
+Such was the state of affairs in 1862, when war arose between the
+khanates themselves, and the Emir of Bokhara invaded and conquered
+Khokand. Russia looked on, awaiting its opportunity. It came at length
+in an appeal from the merchants of Tashkend for protection. The
+protection came in true Russian style, a Cossack force marching into and
+occupying the town, which has since then remained in Russian hands. The
+movement of invasion went on until a large portion of Khokand was
+seized.
+
+This audacious procedure of the Muscovites, as the Emir of Bokhara
+regarded it, roused that ruler to a high pitch of fury and fanaticism.
+He imprisoned Colonel Struve, an eminent Russian astronomer who was on a
+mission to his capital, and declared a holy war against the invading
+infidels.
+
+The emir had little fear of his foes, having what he considered two
+impassable lines of defence. Of these the first was the desert, which
+enclosed his land as within a wall of sand. The second, and in his view
+the more impregnable, was the large number of saints that lay buried in
+Bokharan soil, before whose graves the infidel host would surely be
+stayed.
+
+He probably soon lost faith in the saints, for the Russians quickly
+drove his troops out of Khokand and then invaded Bokhara itself,
+defeating his troops near the venerable and famous city of Samarcand, of
+which they immediately afterwards took possession. These infidel
+assaults soon brought the holy war to an end, the emir being forced to
+cede Samarcand and three other places to Russia, the four being so
+chosen as to give the invaders full military control of the country.
+
+This disaster, which fell upon Bokhara in 1868, was repeated in Khiva in
+1873. Bokharan troops aided the Russians, and Bokhara was rewarded with
+a generous slice of the conquered territory. Khiva was overthrown as
+quickly as the other oases had been, and the whole of Central Asia
+became Russian soil. It is true that a shadow of the old government is
+maintained, the khans of Bokhara and Khiva still occupying their
+thrones. But they are mere puppets to move as the Czar of Russia pulls
+the strings. As for Khokand, it has disappeared from the map of Asia,
+being replaced by the Russian province of Ferghana.
+
+We have thus in few words told a long and vital story, that of the steps
+by which Russia gained its strong foothold in Asia, and extended its
+boundaries from the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean
+and the boundaries of China, Persia, and India, all of which may yet
+become part of the vast Russian empire, if what some consider the secret
+purpose of Russia be carried out.
+
+Asia has been won by the sword; it is being held by other influences.
+Schools have been founded among the Kirghis, and a newspaper is printed
+in their language. Their plundering habits have been suppressed,
+agriculture is encouraged, and luxuries are being introduced into the
+steppes, with the result of changing the ideas and habits of the nomads.
+Thriving Cossack colonies have grown up on the plains, and the wandering
+barbarians behold with wonder the ways and means of civilization in
+their midst.
+
+The same may be said of Turkestan, in which violence has been suppressed
+and industry encouraged, while the Russian population, alike of the
+steppes and of the oases, is rapidly increasing. A railroad penetrates
+the formerly mysterious land, trains roll daily over its soil, carrying
+great numbers of Asiatic passengers, and an undreamed-of activity of
+commerce has taken the place of the old-time plundering raids of the
+half-savage Turkoman horsemen.
+
+The Russian is thoroughly adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an
+Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle
+the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian
+diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners.
+He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and prevaricate to
+their hearts' content. He is an adept in the art of bribery, has
+emissaries everywhere, and is much too deeply imbued with this Asiatic
+spirit for the bluntness of European methods. "You must beat about the
+bush with a Russian," we are told. "You must flatter them and humbug
+them. You must talk about everything but _the_ thing. If you want to buy
+a horse you must pretend you want to sell a cow, and so work gradually
+round to the point in view."
+
+Thus the shrewd Russian has gained point after point from his Oriental
+neighbors, and has succeeded in annexing a vast territory while keeping
+on the friendliest of terms with his new subjects. He has respected
+their prejudices, left their religions untouched, dealt with them in
+their own ways, and is rapidly planting the Muscovite type of
+civilization where Asiatic barbarism had for untold ages prevailed.
+
+No man can predict the final result of these movements. Asia has been in
+all ages the field of great invasions and of the sudden building up of
+immense empires. But the movements of the Muscovite conquerors have none
+of the torrent rush of those great invasions of the past. The Russian
+advances with extreme caution, takes no risks, and makes sure of his
+game before he shows his hand. He prepares the ground in front before
+taking a step forward, and all that he leaves in his rear falls into the
+strong folds of the imperial net. Gold and diplomacy are his weapons
+equally with the sword, and in the progress of his arms we seem to see
+Europe marching into Asia with a solid and unyielding front.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RAILROAD IN TURKESTAN._
+
+
+On the 24th of January, 1881, Edward O'Donovan, a daring traveller who
+had journeyed far through the wastes and wilds of Turkestan, found
+himself on a mountain summit not far removed from the northern boundary
+of Persia, from which his startled eyes beheld a spectacle of fearful
+import. Below him the desert stretched in a broad level far away to the
+distant horizon. Near the foot of the range rose a great fortress,
+within which at that moment a frightful struggle was taking place.
+Bringing his field-glass to bear upon the scene, the traveller saw a
+host of terror-stricken fugitives streaming across the plain, and hot
+upon their steps a throng of merciless pursuers, who slaughtered them in
+multitudes as they fled. Even from where he stood the white face of the
+desert seemed changing to a crimson hue.
+
+What the astounded traveller beheld was the death-struggle of the desert
+Turkomans, the hand of retribution smiting those savage brigands who for
+centuries had carried death and misery wherever they rode. These were
+the Tekke Turkomans, the tribes who haunted the Persian frontier, and
+whose annual raids swept hundreds of captives from that peaceful land to
+spend the remainder of their days in the most woful form of slavery. For
+a month previous General Skobeleff, the most daring and merciless of
+the Russian leaders, had besieged them in their great fort of Geop Tepe,
+an earthwork nearly three miles in circuit, and containing within its
+ample walls a desert nation, more than forty thousand in all, men,
+women, and children.
+
+On that day, fatal to the Turkoman power, Skobeleff had taken the fort
+by storm, dealing death wherever he moved, until not a man was left
+alive within its walls except some hundreds of fettered Persian slaves.
+Through its gateways a trembling multitude had fled, and upon these
+miserable fugitives the Russian had let loose his soldiers, horse, foot,
+and artillery, with the savage order to hunt them to the death and give
+no quarter.
+
+Only too well was the brutal order obeyed. Not men alone, but women and
+children as well, fell victims to the sword, and only when night put an
+end to the pursuit did that terrible massacre cease. By that time eight
+thousand persons, of both sexes and all ages, lay stretched in death
+upon the plain. Within the fort thousands more had fallen, the women and
+children here being spared. Skobeleff's report said that twenty thousand
+in all had been slain.
+
+Such was the frightful scene which lay before O'Donovan's eyes when he
+reached the mountain top, on his way to the Russian camp, a spectacle of
+horrible carnage which only a man of the most savage instincts could
+have ordered. "Bloody Eyes" the Turkomans named Skobeleff, and the title
+fairly indicated his ruthless lust for blood. It was his theory of war
+to strike hard when he struck at all, and to make each battle a lesson
+that would not soon be forgotten. The Turkoman nomads have been taught
+their lesson well. They have given no trouble since that day of
+slaughter and revenge.
+
+Such was one of the weapons with which the Russians conquered the
+desert,--the sword. It was succeeded by another,--the iron rail. It is
+now some twenty years since the idea of a railroad from the Caspian Sea
+eastward was first advanced. In 1880 a narrow-gauge road was begun to
+aid Skobeleff, but that daring and impetuous chief had made his march
+and finished his work before the rails had crept far on their way. Soon
+it was determined to change the narrow-gauge for a broad-gauge road, and
+General Annenkoff, a skilful engineer, was placed in charge in 1885,
+with orders to push it forward with all speed.
+
+It was a new and bold project which the Russians had in view. Never
+before had a railroad been built across so bleak a plain, a treeless and
+waterless expanse, stretching for hundreds of miles in a dead level,
+over which the winds drove at will the shifting sands, constantly
+threatening to bury any work which man ventured to lay upon the desert's
+broad breast. West of Bokhara and south of Khiva stretched the great
+desert of Kara-Kum, touching the Caspian Sea on the west, the Amu-Daria
+River on the east, the home of the wandering Turkomans, the born foes of
+the settled races, but from whom all thought of disputing the Russian
+rule had for the time been driven by Skobeleff's death-dealing blade.
+
+The total length of the road thus ordered to be built--extending from
+the shores of the Caspian Sea, the outpost of European Russia, to the
+far-away city of Samarcand, the ancient capital of Timur the Tartar, and
+the very stronghold of Asiatic barbarism--was little short of a thousand
+miles, of which several hundred were bleak and barren desert. Two
+immense steppes, waterless, and scorching hot in summer, lay on the
+route, while it traversed the oases of Kizil-Arvat, Merv, Charjui, and
+Bokhara. In the northern section of the last lay the famous city of
+Samarcand, the eastern terminus of the road. The western terminus was at
+Usun-ada, on the Caspian, and opposite the petroleum region of Baku,
+perhaps the richest oil-yielding district in the world.
+
+General Annenkoff had special difficulties to overcome in the building
+of this road, of a kind never met with by railroad engineers before.
+Chief among these were the lack of water and the instability of the
+roadway, the wind at times manifesting an awkward disposition to blow
+out the foundation from under the ties, at other times to bury the whole
+road under acres of flying sand.
+
+These difficulties were got rid of in various ways. Fresh water, made by
+boiling the salt water of the Caspian and condensing the steam, was
+carried in vats or tuns over the road to the working parties. At a later
+date water was conveyed in pipes from the mountains to fill cisterns at
+the stations, whence it was carried in canals or underground conduits
+along the line, every well and spring on the route being utilized.
+
+To overcome the shifting of the sand, near the Caspian it was
+thoroughly soaked with salt water, and at other places was covered with
+a layer of clay. But there are long distances where no such means could
+be employed, at least two hundred miles of utter wilderness, where the
+surface resembles a billowy sea, the sand being raised in loose hillocks
+and swept from the troughs between, flying in such clouds before every
+wind that an incessant battle with nature is necessary to keep the road
+from burial. To prevent this, tamarisk, wild oats, and desert shrubs are
+planted along the line, and in particular that strange plant of the
+wilderness, the _saxaoul_, whose branches are scraggly and scant, but
+whose sturdy roots sink deep into the sand, seeking moisture in the
+depths. Fascines of the branches of this plant were laid along the track
+and covered with sand, and in places palisades were built, of which only
+the tops are now visible.
+
+Yet despite all these efforts the sands creep insidiously on, and in
+certain localities workmen have to be kept employed, shovelling it back
+as it comes, and fighting without cessation against the forces of the
+desert and the winds. In the building of the road, and in this battling
+with the sands, Turkomans have been largely employed, having given up
+brigandage for honest labor, in which they have proved the most
+efficient of the various workmen engaged upon the road.
+
+Aside from the peculiar difficulties above outlined, the Transcaspian
+Railway was remarkably favored by nature. For nearly the whole distance
+the country is as flat as a billiard-table, and the road so straight
+that at times it runs for twenty or thirty miles without the shadow of a
+curve. In the entire distance there is not a tunnel, and only some small
+cuttings have been made through hills of sand. Of bridges, other than
+mere culverts, there are but three in the whole length of the road, the
+only large one being that over the Amu-Daria. This is a hastily built,
+rickety affair of timber, put up only as a make-shift, and at the mercy
+of the stream if a serious rise should take place.
+
+The whole road, indeed, was hastily made, with a single track, the rails
+simply spiked down, and the work done at the rate of from a mile to a
+mile and a half a day. Before the Bokharans fairly realized what was
+afoot, the iron horse was careering over their level plains, and the
+shrill scream of the locomotive whistle was startling the saints in
+their graves.
+
+Over such a road no great speed can be attained. Thirty miles an hour is
+the maximum, and from ten to twenty miles the average speed, while the
+stops at stations are exasperatingly long to travellers from the
+impatient West. To the Asiatics they are of no concern, time being with
+them not worth a moment's thought.
+
+In the operation of this road petroleum waste is used as fuel, the
+refining works at Baku yielding an inexhaustible supply. The carriages
+are of mixed classes, some being two stories in height, each story of
+different class. There are very few first-class carriages on the road.
+As for the stations, some of them are miles from the road, that of
+Bokhara being ten miles away. This method was adopted to avoid exciting
+the prejudices of the Asiatics, who at first were not in favor of the
+road, regarding it as a device of Shaitan, the spirit of evil. Yet the
+"fire-cart," as they call it, is proving very convenient, and they have
+no objection to let this fiery Satan haul their grain and cotton to
+market and carry themselves across the waterless plains. The camel is
+being thrown out of business by this shrill-voiced prince of evil. The
+road is being extended over the oases, and will in the end bring all
+Turkestan under its control.
+
+It almost takes away one's breath to think of railway stations and
+time-tables in connection with the old-time abiding-place of the
+terrible Tartar, and of the iron horse careering across the empire of
+barbarism, rushing into the metropolis of superstition, and waking with
+the scream of the steam whistle the silent centuries of the Orient.
+Nothing of greater promise than this planting of the railroad in Central
+Asia has been performed of recent years. The son of the desert is to be
+civilized despite himself, and to be taught the arts and ideas of the
+West by the irresistible logic of steel and steam.
+
+But this enterprise is a minor one compared with that which Russia has
+recently completed, that of a railway extending across the whole width
+of Siberia, being, with its branches, more than five thousand miles
+long--much the longest railway in the world. Work on this was begun in
+1890, and it is now completed to Vladivostok, the chief Russian port on
+the Pacific, a traveller being able to ride from St. Petersburg to the
+shores of the Pacific Ocean without change of cars. A branch of this
+road runs southward through Manchuria to Port Arthur, but as a result of
+the war with Japan this has been transferred to China, Manchuria being
+wrested from the controlling grasp of Russia. It is a single-track road,
+but it is proposed to double-track it throughout its entire length, thus
+greatly increasing its availability as a channel of transport alike in
+war and peace.
+
+All this is of the deepest significance. The railroad in Asia has come
+to stay; and with its coming the barbarism of the past is nearing its
+end. The sleeping giant of Orientalism is stirring uneasily in its bed,
+its drowsy senses stirred by the shrill alarum of the locomotive
+whistle. New ideas and new habits must follow in the track of the iron
+horse. The West is forcing itself into the East, with all its restless
+activity. In the time to come this whole broad continent is destined to
+be covered with railroads as with a vast spider-web; new industries will
+be established, machinery introduced, and the great region of the
+steppes, famous in the past only as the starting-point of conquering
+migrations, must in the end become an active centre of industry, the
+home of peace and prosperity, a new-found abiding-place of civilization
+and human progress.
+
+
+
+
+_AN ESCAPE FROM THE MINES OF SIBERIA._
+
+
+The name Siberia calls up to our minds the vision of a stupendous
+prison, a vast open penitentiary larger than the whole United States, a
+continental place of captivity which for three centuries past has been
+the seat of more wretchedness and misery than any other land inhabited
+by the human race. To that far, frozen land a stream of the best and
+worst of the people of Russia has steadily flowed, including prisoners
+of state, religious dissenters, rebels, Polish patriots, convicts,
+vagabonds, and all others who in any way gave offence to the authorities
+or stood in the way of persons in power.
+
+Not freedom of action alone, but even freedom of thought, is a crime in
+Russia. It is a land of innumerable spies, of secret arrest and rapid
+condemnation, in which the captive may find himself on the road to
+Siberia without knowing with what crime he is charged, while his
+friends, even his wife and family, may remain in ignorance of his fate.
+Every year a convoy of some twenty thousand wretched prisoners is sent
+off to that dismal land, including the ignorant and the educated, the
+debased and the refined, men and women, young and old, the horror of
+exile being added to indescribably by this mingling of delicate and
+refined men and women with the rudest and most brutal of the convict
+class, all under the charge of mounted Cossacks, well armed, and bearing
+long whips as their most effective arguments of control.
+
+It may be said here that the misery of this long journey on foot has
+been somewhat mitigated since the introduction of railroads and
+steamboats, and will very likely be done away with when the
+Trans-siberian Railway is finished; but for centuries the horrors of the
+convict train have piteously appealed to the charity of the world, while
+the sufferings and brutalities which the exiles have had to endure stand
+almost without parallel in the story of convict life.
+
+The exiles are divided into two classes, those who lose all and those
+who lose part of their rights. Of a convict of the former class neither
+the word nor the bond has any value: his wife is released from all duty
+to him, he cannot possess any property or hold any office. In prison he
+wears convict clothes, has his head half shaved, and may be cruelly
+flogged at the will of the officials, or murdered almost with impunity.
+Those deprived of partial rights are usually sent to Western Siberia;
+those deprived of total rights are sent to Eastern Siberia, where their
+life, as workers in the mines, is so miserable and monotonous that death
+is far more of a relief than something to be feared.
+
+[Illustration: GROUP OF SIBERIANS.]
+
+Many of the exiles escape,--some from the districts where they live
+free, with privilege of getting a living in any manner available, others
+from the prisons or mines. The mere feat of running away is in many
+cases not difficult, but to get out of the country is a very different
+matter. The officers do not make any serious efforts to prevent escapes,
+and can be easily bribed to allow them, since they are enabled then to
+turn in the name of the prisoner as still on hand and charge the
+government for his support. In the gold-mines the convicts work in
+gangs, and here one will lie in a ditch and be covered with rubbish by
+his comrades. When his absence is discovered he is not to be found, and
+at nightfall he slips from the trench and makes for the forest.
+
+To spend the summer in the woods is the joy of many convicts. They have
+no hope of getting out of the country, which is of such vast extent that
+winter is sure to descend upon them before they can approach the border,
+but the freedom of life in the woods has for them an undefinable charm.
+Then as the frigid season approaches they permit themselves to be
+caught, and go back to their labor or confinement with hearts lightened
+by the enjoyment of their vagrant summer wanderings. There is in some
+cases another advantage to be gained. A twenty years' convict who has
+escaped and lets himself be caught again may give a false name, and
+avoid all incriminating answers through a convenient failure of memory.
+If not detected, he may in this way get off with a five years' sentence
+as a vagrant. But if detected his last lot is worse than his first,
+since the time he has already served goes for nothing.
+
+There is another peril to which escaping prisoners are exposed. The
+native tribes are apt to look upon them as game and shoot them down at
+sight. It is said that they receive three roubles for each convict they
+bring to the police, dead or alive. "If you shoot a squirrel," they say,
+"you get only his skin; but if you shoot a _varnak_ [convict] you get
+his skin and his clothing too."
+
+Atkinson, the Siberian traveller, tells a remarkable story of an escape
+of prisoners, which may be given in illustration of the above remarks.
+One night in September, 1850, the people of Barnaoul, a town in Western
+Siberia, were roused from their slumbers by the clatter of a party of
+mounted Cossacks galloping up the quiet street. The story they brought
+was an alarming one. Siberia had been invaded by three thousand Tartars
+of the desert, who were marching towards the town. Nearly all the gold
+from the Siberian gold-mines lay in Barnaoul, waiting to be smelted into
+bars and sent to St. Petersburg. There was much silver also, with
+abundance of other valuable government stores. All this would form a
+rich booty for an army of nomad plunderers, could they obtain it, and
+the news filled the town with excitement and alarm.
+
+As the night passed and the day came on, other Cossacks arrived with
+still more alarming news. The three thousand had grown to seven
+thousand, many of them armed with rifles, who were burning the Kalmuck
+villages as they advanced, and murdering every man, woman, and child who
+fell into their hands. Some thought that the wild hordes of Asia were
+breaking loose again, as in the time of Genghis Khan, and the terror of
+many of the people grew intense.
+
+By noon the enemy had increased to ten thousand, and the people
+everywhere were flying before their advance. Hasty steps were taken for
+defence and for the safety of the gold and silver, while orders were
+despatched in all directions to gather a force to meet them on their
+way. But as the days passed on the alarm began to subside. The number of
+the invaders declined almost as rapidly as it had grown. They were not
+advancing upon the town. No army was needed to oppose them, and Cossacks
+were sent to stop the march of the troops. In the course of two days
+more the truth was sifted from the mass of wild rumors and reports. The
+ten thousand invaders dwindled to forty Circassian prisoners who had
+escaped from the gold-mines on the Birioussa.
+
+These fugitives had not a thought of invading the Russian dominions.
+They were prisoners of war who, with heartless cruelty, had been
+condemned to the mines of Siberia for the crime of a patriotic effort to
+save their country, and their sole purpose was to return to their
+far-distant homes.
+
+By the aid of small quantities of gold, which they had managed to hide
+from their guards, they succeeded in purchasing a sufficient supply of
+rifles and ammunition from the neighboring tribesmen, which they hid in
+a mountain cavern about seven miles away. There was no fear of the
+Tartars betraying them, as they had received for the arms ten times
+their value, and would have been severely punished if found with gold in
+their possession.
+
+On a Saturday afternoon near the end of July, 1850, after completing the
+day's labors, the Circassians left the mine in small parties, going in
+different directions. This excited no suspicion, as they were free to
+hunt or otherwise amuse themselves after their work. They gradually came
+together in a mountain ravine about six miles south of the mines. Not
+far from this locality a stud of spare horses were kept at pasture, and
+hither some of the fugitives made their way, reaching the spot just as
+the animals were being driven into the enclosure for the night. The
+three horse-keepers suddenly found themselves covered with rifles and
+forced to yield themselves prisoners, while their captors began to
+select the best horses from the herd.
+
+The Circassians deemed it necessary to take the herdsmen with them to
+prevent them from giving the alarm. Two of these also were skilful
+hunters and well acquainted with the surrounding mountain regions, and
+were likely to prove useful as guides. In all fifty-five horses were
+chosen, out of the three or four hundred in the herd. The remainder were
+turned out of the enclosure and driven into the forest, as if they had
+broken loose and their keepers were absent in search of them. This done,
+the captors sought their friends in the glen, by whom they were received
+with cheers, and before midnight, the moon having risen, the fugitives
+began their long and dangerous journey.
+
+Sunrise found them on a high summit, which commanded a view of the
+gold-mine they had left, marked by the curling smoke which rose from
+fires kept constantly alive to drive away the mosquitoes, the pests of
+the region. Taking a last look at their place of exile, they moved on
+into a grassy valley, where they breakfasted and fed their horses. On
+they went, keeping a sharp watch upon their guides, day by day, until
+the evening of the fourth day found them past the crest of the range and
+descending into a narrow valley, where they decided to spend the night.
+
+Thus far all had gone well. They were now beyond the Russian frontier
+and in Chinese territory, and as their guides knew the country no
+farther, they were set free and their rifles restored to them. Venison
+had been obtained plentifully on the march, and fugitives and captives
+alike passed the evening in feasting and enjoyment. With daybreak the
+Siberians left to return to the mine and the Circassians resumed their
+route.
+
+From this time onward difficulties confronted them. They were in a
+region of mountains, precipices, ravines, and torrents. One dangerous
+river they swam, but, instead of keeping on due south, the difficulties
+of the way induced them to change their course to the west, alarmed,
+probably, by the vast snowy peaks of the Tangnou Mountains in the
+distance, though if they had passed these all danger from Siberia would
+have been at an end. As it was, after more than three weeks of
+wandering, the nature of the country forced them towards the northwest,
+until they came upon the eastern shore of the Altin-Kool Lake.
+
+Here was their final chance. Had they followed the lake southerly they
+might still have reached a place of safety. But ill fortune brought them
+upon it at a point where it seemed easiest to round it on the north,
+and they passed on, hoping soon to reach its western shores. But the
+Bëa, the impassable torrent that flows from the lake, forced them again
+many miles northward in search of a ford, and into a locality from which
+their chance of escape was greatly reduced.
+
+More than two months had passed since they left the mines, and the poor
+wanderers were still in the vast Siberian prison, from which, if they
+had known the country, they might now have been far away. The region
+they had reached was thinly inhabited by Kalmuck Tartars, and they
+finally entered a village of this people, with whose inhabitants they
+unluckily got into a broil, ending in a battle, in which several
+Kalmucks were killed and the village burned.
+
+To this event was due the terrifying news that reached Barnaoul, the
+alarm being carried to a Cossack fort whose commandant was drunk at the
+time and sent out a series of exaggerated reports. As for the fugitives,
+they had in effect signed their death-warrant by their conflict with the
+Kalmucks. The news spread from tribe to tribe, and when the real number
+of the fugitives was learned the tribesmen entered savagely into
+pursuit, determined to obtain revenge for their slain kinsmen. The
+Circassians were wandering in an unknown country. The Kalmucks knew
+every inch of the ground. Scouts followed the fugitives, and after them
+came well-mounted hunters, who rapidly closed upon the trail, being on
+the evening of the third day but three miles away.
+
+The Circassians had crossed the Bëa and turned to the south, but here
+they found themselves in an almost impassable group of snow-clad
+mountains. On they pushed, deeper and deeper into the chain, still
+closely pursued, the Kalmucks so managing the pursuit as to drive them
+into a pathless region of the hills. This accomplished, they came on
+leisurely, knowing that they had their prey safe.
+
+At length the hungry and weary warriors were driven into a mountain
+pass, where the pursuers, who had hitherto saved their bullets, began a
+savage attack, rifle-balls dropping fast into the glen. The fugitives
+sought shelter behind some fallen rocks, and returned the fire with
+effect. But they were at a serious disadvantage, the hunters, who far
+outnumbered them, and knew every crag in the ravines, picking them off
+in safety from behind places of shelter. From point to point the
+Circassians fell back, defending their successive stations desperately,
+answering every call to surrender with shouts of defiance, and holding
+each spot until the fall of their comrades warned them that the place
+was no longer tenable.
+
+Night fell during the struggle, and under its cover the remaining
+fifteen of the brave fugitives made their way on foot deeper into the
+mountains, abandoning their horses to the merciless foe. At daybreak
+they resumed their march, scaling the rocky heights in front. Here,
+scanning the country in search of their pursuers, not one of whom was to
+be seen, they turned to the west, a range of snow-clad peaks closing the
+way in front. A forest of cedars before them seemed to present their
+only chance of escape, and they hurried towards it, but when within two
+hundred yards of the wood a puff of white smoke rose from a thicket, and
+one of the fugitives fell. The hunters had ambushed them on this spot,
+and as they rushed for the shelter of some rocks near by five more fell
+before the bullets of their foes.
+
+The fire was returned with some effect, and then a last desperate rush
+was made for the forest shelter. Only four of the poor fellows reached
+it, and of these some were wounded. The thick underwood now screened
+them from the volley that whistled after them, and they were soon safe
+from the effects of rifle-shots in the tangled forest depths.
+
+Meanwhile the clouds had been gathering black and dense, and soon rain
+and sleet began to fall, accompanied by a fierce gale. Two small parties
+of Kalmucks were sent in pursuit, while the others began to prepare an
+encampment under the cedars. The storm rapidly grew into a hurricane,
+snow falling thick and whirling into eddies, while the pursuers were
+soon forced to return without having seen the small remnant of the
+gallant band. For three days the storm continued, and then was followed
+by a sharp frost. The winter had set in.
+
+No further pursuit was attempted. It was not needed. Nothing more was
+ever seen of the four Circassians, nor any trace of them found. They
+undoubtedly found their last resting-place under the snows of that
+mountain storm.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN._
+
+
+On the memorable Saturday of May 27, 1905, in far eastern waters in
+which the guns of war-ships had rarely thundered before, took place an
+event that opened the eyes of the world as if a new planet had swept
+into its ken or a great comet had suddenly blazed out in the eastern
+skies. It was that of one of the most stupendous naval victories in
+history, won by a people who fifty years before had just begun to emerge
+from the dim twilight of mediæval barbarism.
+
+Japan, the Nemesis of the East, had won her maiden spurs on the field of
+warfare in her brief conflict with China in 1894, but that was looked
+upon as a fight between a young game-cock and a decrepit barn-yard fowl,
+and the Western world looked with a half-pitying indulgence upon the
+spectacle of the long-slumbering Orient serving its apprenticeship in
+modern war. Yet the rapid and complete triumph of the island empire over
+the leviathan of the Asiatic continent was much of a revelation of the
+latent power that dwelt in that newly-aroused archipelago, and when in
+1903 Japan began to speak in tones of menace to a second leviathan, that
+of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, the world's interest was deeply
+stirred again.
+
+Would little Japan dare attack a European power and one so great and
+populous as Russia, with half Asia already in its clasp, with strong
+fortresses and fleets within striking distance, and with a continental
+railway over which it could pour thousands of armed battalions? The idea
+seemed preposterous, many looked upon the attitude of Japan as the
+madness of temerity, and when on February 6, 1904, the echo of the guns
+at Port Arthur was heard the world gave a gasp of astonishment and
+alarm.
+
+Were there any among us then who believed it possible for little Japan
+to triumph over the colossus it had so daringly attacked? If any, they
+were very few. It is doubtful if there was a man in Russia itself who
+dreamed of anything but eventual victory, with probably the adding of
+the islands of Japan to its chaplet of orient pearls. True, the success
+of the attack on their fleet was a painful surprise, and when they saw
+their great iron-clads locked up in Port Arthur harbor it was cause for
+annoyance. But if the fleet had been taken by surprise, the fortress was
+claimed to be impregnable, the army was powerful and accustomed to
+victory over its foes in Asia, and it was with an amused contempt of
+their half-barbarian foes and confidence in rapid and brilliant triumph
+that the Muscovite cohorts streamed across Asia with arms in hand and
+hope in heart.
+
+We do not propose to tell here what followed. The world knows it. Men
+read with an interest they had rarely taken in foreign affairs of the
+rapid and stupendous successes of the little soldiers of Nippon, the
+indomitable valor of the troops, the striking skill of their leaders,
+the breadth and completeness of their tactics, the training and
+discipline of the men, the rare hygienic condition of the camps, their
+impetuosity in attack, their persistence in pursuit; in short, the
+sudden advent of an army with all the requisites of a victorious career,
+as pitted against the ill-handled myriads of Russia, not wanting in
+brute courage, but sadly lacking in efficient leadership and strategical
+skill in their commanders.
+
+Back went the Russian hosts, mile by mile, league by league, steadily
+pressed northward by the unrelenting persistence of the island warriors;
+while on the Liao-tung peninsula the besieging forces crept on foot by
+foot, caring apparently nothing for wounds or death, caring only for the
+possession of the fortress which they had been sent to win.
+
+We should like to record some victories for the Russians, but the annals
+of the war tell us of none. Outgeneralled and driven back from their
+strong position on the Yalu River; decisively beaten in the great battle
+of Liao-yang; checked in their offensive movement on the Shakhe River,
+with immense loss; and finally utterly defeated in the desperate two
+weeks' struggle around Mukden; the field warfare ended in the two great
+armies facing each other at Harbin, with months of manoeuvring before
+them.
+
+Meanwhile the campaign in the peninsula had gone on with like desperate
+efforts and final success of the Japanese, Port Arthur surrendering to
+its irresistible besiegers on the opening day of 1905. With it fell the
+Russian fleet which had been cooped up in its harbor for nearly a year;
+defeated and driven back in its every attempt to escape; its flag-ship,
+the "Petropavlovsk," sunk by a mine on April 13, 1904, carrying down
+Admiral Makaroff and nearly all its crew; the remnant of the fleet being
+finally sunk or otherwise disabled to save them from capture on the
+surrender of Port Arthur to the besieging forces.
+
+Such, in very brief epitome, were the leading features of the conflict
+on land and its earlier events on the sea. We must now return to the
+great naval battle spoken of above, which calls for detailed description
+alike from its being the closing struggle of the contest and from its
+extraordinary character as a phenomenal event in maritime war.
+
+The loss of the naval strength of Russia in eastern waters led to a
+desperate effort to retrieve the disaster, by sending from the Baltic
+every war-ship that could be got ready, with the hope that a strong
+fleet on the open waters of the east would enable Russia to regain its
+prestige as a naval power and deal a deadly blow at its foe, by closing
+the waters upon the possession of which the islanders depended for the
+support of their armies in Manchuria.
+
+This supplementary fleet, under Admiral Rojestvensky, set sail from the
+port of Libau on October 16, 1904, beginning its career inauspiciously
+by firing impulsively on some English fishing-boats on the 21st, with
+the impression that these were Japanese scouts. This hasty act
+threatened to embroil Russia with another foe, the ally of Japan, but it
+passed off with no serious results.
+
+Entering the Mediterranean and passing through the Suez Canal, the fine
+fleet under Rojestvensky, nearly sixty vessels strong, loitered on its
+way with wearisome deliberation, dallying for a protracted interval in
+the waters of the Indian Ocean and not passing Singapore on its journey
+north till April 12. It looked almost as if its commander feared the
+task before him, six months having now passed since it left the Baltic
+on its very deliberate cruise.
+
+The second Russian squadron, under Admiral Nebogatoff, did not pass
+Singapore until May 5, it being the 13th before the two squadrons met
+and combined. On the 22d they were seen in the waters of the Philippines
+heading northward. The news of this, flashed by cable from the far east
+to the far west, put Europe and America on the _qui vive_, in eager
+anticipation of startling events quickly to follow.
+
+Meanwhile where was Admiral Togo and his fleet? For months he had been
+engaged in the work of bottling up the Russian squadron at Port Arthur.
+Since the fall of the latter place and the destruction of the war-ships
+in its harbor he had been lying in wait for the slow-coming Baltic
+fleet, doubtless making every preparation for the desperate struggle
+before him, but doing this in so silent and secret a method that the
+world outside knew next to nothing of what was going on. The astute
+authorities of Japan had no fancy for heralding their work to the world,
+and not a hint of the movements or whereabouts of the fleet reached
+men's ears.
+
+As the days passed on and the Russian ships steamed still northward, the
+anxious curiosity as to the location of the Japanese fleet grew
+painfully intense. The expected intention to waylay Rojestvensky in the
+southern straits had not been realized, and as the Russians left the
+Philippines in their rear, the question, Where is Togo? grew more
+insistent still. With extraordinary skill he had lain long in ambush,
+not a whisper as to the location of his fleet being permitted to make
+its way to the western world; and when Rojestvensky ventured into the
+yawning jaws of the Korean Strait he was in utter ignorance of the
+lurking-place of his grimly waiting foes.
+
+Before Rojestvensky lay two routes to choose between, the more direct
+one to Vladivostok through the narrow Korean Strait, or the longer one
+eastward of the great island of Honshu. Which he would take was in doubt
+and in which Togo awaited him no one knew. The skilled admiral of Japan
+kept his counsel well, doubtless satisfied in his own mind that the
+Russians would follow the more direct route, and quietly but watchfully
+awaiting their approach.
+
+It was on May 22, as we have said, that the Russian fleet appeared off
+the Philippines, the greatest naval force that the mighty Muscovite
+empire had ever sent to sea, the utmost it could muster after its
+terrible losses at Port Arthur. Five days afterwards, on the morning of
+Saturday, May 27, this proud array of men-of-war steamed into the open
+throat of the Straits of Korea, steering for victory and Vladivostok. On
+the morning of Monday, the 29th, a few battered fragments of this grand
+fleet were fleeing for life from their swift pursuers. The remainder
+lay, with their drowned crews, on the sea-bottom, or were being taken
+into the ports of victorious Japan. In those two days had been fought to
+a finish the greatest naval battle of recent times, and Japan had won
+the position of one of the leading naval powers of the world.
+
+On that Saturday morning no dream of such a destiny troubled the souls
+of those in the Russian fleet. They were passing into the throat of the
+channel between Japan and Korea, but as yet no sign of a foeman had
+appeared, and it may be that numbers on board the fleet were
+disappointed, for doubtless the hope of battle and victory filled many
+ardent souls on the Russian ships. The sun rose on the new day and sent
+its level beams across the seas, on which as yet no hostile ship had
+appeared. The billowing waters spread broad and open before them and it
+began to look as if those who hoped for a fight would be disappointed,
+those who desired a clear sea and an open passage would be gratified.
+
+No sails were visible on the waters except those of small craft, which
+scudded hastily for shore on seeing the great array of war-ships on the
+horizon. Fishing-craft most of these, though doubtless among them were
+the scout-boats which the watchful Togo had on patrol with orders to
+signal the approach of the enemy's fleet. But as the day moved on the
+scene changed. A great ship loomed up, steering into the channel, then
+another and another, the vanguard of a battle-fleet, steaming straight
+southward. All doubt vanished. Togo had sprung from his ambush and the
+battle was at hand.
+
+It was a rough sea, and the coming vessels dashed through heavy waves as
+they drove onward to the fray. From the flag-ship of the fleet of Japan
+streamed the admiral's signal, not unlike the famous signal of Nelson at
+Trafalgar, "The defense of our empire depends upon this action. You are
+expected to do your utmost."
+
+Northward drove the Russians, drawn up in double column. The day moved
+on until noon was passed and the hour of two was reached. A few minutes
+later the first shots came from the foremost Russian ships. They fell
+short and the Japanese waited until they came nearer before replying.
+Then the roar of artillery began and from both sides came a hail of shot
+and shell, thundering on opposing hulls or rending the water into foam.
+From two o'clock on Saturday afternoon until two o'clock on Sunday
+morning that iron storm kept on with little intermission, the huge
+twelve-inch guns sending their monstrous shells hurtling through the
+air, the smaller guns raining projectiles on battle-ships and cruisers,
+until it seemed as if nothing that floated could live through that
+terrible storm.
+
+Never in the history of naval warfare had so frightful a cannonade been
+seen. Its effect on the opposing fleets was very different. For months
+Togo had kept his gunners in training and their shell-fire was accurate
+and deadly, hundreds of their projectiles hitting the mark and working
+dire havoc to the Russian ships and crews; while to judge from the
+little damage done, the return fire would seem to have been wild and at
+random. Either the work of training his gunners had been neglected by
+the Russian admiral, or they were demoralized by the projectiles from
+the rapid-fire guns of the Japanese, which swept their decks and mowed
+down the gunners at their posts.
+
+This fierce and telling fire soon had its effect. Ninety minutes after
+it began, the Russian armored cruiser "Admiral Nakhimoff" went reeling
+to the bottom with the greater part of her crew of six hundred men. Next
+to succumb was the repair-ship "Kamchatka." Badly hurt early in the
+battle, her steering-gear was later disabled, then a shell put her
+engines out of service, and shortly after her bow rose in the air and
+her stern sank, and with a tremendous roar she followed the "Nakhimoff"
+to the depths.
+
+Around the "Borodino," one of the largest of the Russian battle-ships,
+clustered five of the Japanese, pouring in their fire so fiercely that
+flames soon rose from her deck and the wounded monster seemed in sore
+distress. This was Rojestvensky's flag-ship, and the enemy made it one
+of their chief targets, sweeping its decks until the great ship became a
+veritable shambles. Admiral Rojestvensky, wounded and his ship slowly
+settling under him, was transferred in haste to a torpedo-boat
+destroyer, and as evening came on the huge ship, still fighting
+desperately, turned turtle and vanished beneath the waves. As for the
+admiral, the destroyer which bore him was taken and he fell a prisoner
+into Japanese hands.
+
+Previous to this three other battle-ships, the "Lessoi," the "Veliky,"
+and the "Oslabya," had met with a similar fate, and shortly after
+sundown the "Navarin" followed its sister ships to the yawning depths.
+The fiery assault had quickly thrown the whole Russian array into
+disorder, while the Japanese skilfully manoeuvred to press the
+Russians from side and rear, forcing them towards the coast, where they
+were attacked by the Japanese column there advancing. In this way the
+fleet was nearly surrounded, the torpedo-boat flotilla being thrown out
+to intercept those vessels that sought to break through the deadly net.
+
+With the coming on of darkness the firing from the great guns ceased,
+the Russian fleet being by this time hopelessly beaten. But the
+torpedo-boats now came actively into action, keeping up their fire
+through most of the night. When Sunday morning dawned the shattered
+remnants of the Russian fleet were in full flight for safety, hotly
+pursued by the Japanese, who were bent on preventing the escape of a
+single ship. The roar of guns began again about nine o'clock and was
+kept up at intervals during the day, new ships being bagged from time to
+time by Togo's victorious fleet, while others, shot through and through,
+followed their brothers of the day before to the ocean depths.
+
+The most notable event of this day's fight was the bringing to bay off
+Liancourt Island of a squadron of five battle-ships, comprising the
+division of Admiral Nebogatoff. Togo, in the battle-ship "Mikasa,"
+commanded the pursuing squadron, which overtook and surrounded the
+Russian ships, pouring in a terrible fire which soon threw them into
+hopeless confusion. Not a shot came back in reply and Togo, seeing their
+helpless plight, signalled a demand for their surrender. In response the
+Japanese flag was run up over the Russian standard, and these five ships
+fell into the hands of the islanders without an effort at defense. The
+confusion and dismay on board was such that an attempt to fight could
+have led only to their being sent to the bottom with their crews.
+
+It was a miserable remnant of the proud Russian fleet that escaped,
+including only the cruiser "Almez" and a few torpedo-boats that came
+limping into the harbor of Vladivostok with the news of the disaster,
+and the cruisers "Oleg," "Aurora," and "Jemchug," under Rear-admiral
+Enquist, that straggled in a damaged condition into Manila harbor a week
+after the great fight. Aside from these the Russian fleet was
+annihilated, its ships destroyed or captured; the total loss, according
+to Admiral Togo's report, being eight battle-ships, three armored
+cruisers, three coast-defense ships, and an unenumerated multitude of
+smaller vessels, while the loss in men was four thousand prisoners and
+probably twice that number slain or drowned.
+
+The most astonishing part of the report was that the total losses of the
+Japanese were three torpedo-boats, no other ships being seriously
+damaged, while the loss in killed and wounded was not over eight hundred
+men. It was a fight that paralleled, in all respects except that of
+dimensions of the battling fleets, the naval fights at Manila and
+Santiago in the Spanish-American war.
+
+What followed this stupendous victory needs not many words to tell. On
+land and sea the Russians had been fought to a finish. To protract the
+war would have been but to add to their disasters. Peace was imperative
+and it came in the following September, the chief result being that the
+Russian career of conquest in Eastern Asia was stayed and Japan became
+the master spirit in that region of the globe.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: See Historical Tales: France.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Historical Tales, Volume 8, by Charles Morris.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15)
+       The Romance of Reality
+
+Author: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [EBook #25625]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL. 8 (OF 15) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"><a name="THE_KREMLIN" id="THE_KREMLIN"></a>
+<img src="images/image1.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="THE KREMLIN." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE KREMLIN.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p class="old">&Eacute;dition d'&Eacute;lite</p>
+
+
+<h1>Historical Tales</h1>
+<br />
+
+<p class="t1">The Romance of Reality<br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">By</p>
+
+<p class="t2">CHARLES MORRIS</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small><i>Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
+Dramatists," etc.</i></small><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="t3">IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES</p>
+
+<p class="t4">Volume VIII<br /><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="old2">Russian</p>
+
+
+<p class="t2">J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p class="center"><small>Copyright, 1898, by <span class="smcap">J.B. Lippincott Company</span>.<br />
+Copyright, 1904, by <span class="smcap">J.B. Lippincott Company</span>.<br />
+Copyright, 1908, by <span class="smcap">J.B. Lippincott Company</span>.<br />
+</small></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><i>CONTENTS.</i></h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC">
+<tr><td class="td1">&nbsp;</td><td class="td2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Ancient Scythians</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Oleg the Varangian</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Vengeance of Queen Olga</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Vladimir the Great</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Lawgiver of Russia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Yoke of the Tartars</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Victory of the Don</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Ivan, the First of the Czars</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Fall of Novgorod the Great</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Ivan the Terrible</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Conquest of Siberia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Macbeth of Russia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_85">85</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Era of the Impostors</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Books of Ancestry</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Boyhood of Peter the Great</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Carpenter Peter of Zaandam</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Fall of the Strelitz</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Crusade against Beards and Cloaks</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Mazeppa, the Cossack Chief</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Window open to Europe</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">From the Hovel to the Throne</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_165">165</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Buffooneries of the Russian Court</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">How a Woman dethroned a Man</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Struggle for a Throne</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Flight of the Kalmucks</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Magical Transformation Scene</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Kosciusko and the Fall of Poland</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Suwarrow the Unconquerable</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Retreat of Napoleon's Grand Army</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_241">241</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Death-Struggle of Poland</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Schamyl, the Hero of Circassia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_258">258</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Charge of the Light Brigade</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Fall of Sebastopol</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">At the Gates of Constantinople</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Nihilists and their Work</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Advance of Russia in Asia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Railroad in Turkestan</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">An Escape from the Mines of Siberia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Sea Fight in the Waters of Japan</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<p class="center"><big>RUSSIAN.</big></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td class="td1">&nbsp;</td><td class="td2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Kremlin</span></td><td class="td2"><i><a href="#THE_KREMLIN">Frontispiece.</a></i></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Cathedral at Ostankino, near Moscow</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">General View of Moscow</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Church and Tower of Ivan the Great</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Kiakhta, Siberia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Church of the Assumption, Moscow, in which the Czar is Crowned</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Alexander III., Czar of Russia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Dining-room in the Palace of Peter the Great, Moscow</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Peter the Great</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">St. Petersburg Harbor, Neva River</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Sleighing in Russia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_160">160</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">A Russian Drosky</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The City of Kasan</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Scene on a Russian Farm</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Russian Peasants</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Mount St. Peter, Crimea</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Walls of Constantinople</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">The Arrest of a Nihilist</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Dowager Czarina of Russia</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><span class="smcap">Group of Siberians</span></td><td class="td2"><a href="#Page_320">320</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Far</span> over the eastern half of Europe extends a vast and mighty plain,
+spreading thousands of miles to the north and south, to the east and
+west, in the north a land of forests, in the south and east a region of
+treeless levels. Here stretches the Black Land, whose deep dark soil is
+fit for endless harvests; here are the arable steppes, a vast fertile
+prairie land, and here again the barren steppes, fit only for wandering
+herds and the tents of nomad shepherds. Across this great plain, in all
+directions, flow myriads of meandering streams, many of them swelling
+into noble rivers, whose waters find their outlet in great seas. Over it
+blow the biting winds of the Arctic zone, chaining its waters in fetters
+of ice for half the year. On it in summer shine warm suns, in whose
+enlivening rays life flows full again.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the land with which we have to deal, Russia, the seeding-place
+of nations, the home of restless tribes. Here the vast level of Northern
+Asia spreads like a sea over half of Europe, following the lowlands
+between the Urals and the Caspian Sea. Over these broad plains the
+fierce horsemen of the East long found an easy pathway to the rich and
+doomed cities of the West. Russia was playing its part in the grand
+drama of the nations in far-off days when such a land was hardly known
+to exist.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p><p>Have any of my readers ever from a hill-top looked out over a broad,
+low-lying meadow-land filled with morning mist, a dense white shroud
+under which everything lay hidden, all life and movement lost to view?
+In such a scene, as the mist thins under the rays of the rising sun,
+vague forms at first dimly appear, magnified and monstrous in their
+outlines, the shadows of a buried wonderland. Then, as the mist slowly
+lifts, like a great white curtain, living and moving objects appear
+below, still of strange outlines and unnatural dimensions. Finally, as
+if by the sweep of an enchanter's wand, the mists vanish, the land lies
+clear under the solar rays, and we perceive that these seeming monsters
+and giants are but the familiar forms which we know so well, those of
+houses and trees, men and their herds, actively stirring beneath us,
+clearly revealed as the things of every day.</p>
+
+<p>It is thus that the land of Russia appears to us when the mists of
+prehistoric time first begin to lift. Half-formed figures appear,
+rising, vanishing, showing large through the vapor; stirring,
+interwoven, endlessly coming and going; a phantasmagoria which it is
+impossible more than half to understand. At that early date the great
+Russian plain seems to have been the home of unnumbered tribes of varied
+race and origin, made up of men doubtless full of hopes and aspirations
+like ourselves, yet whose story we fail to read on the blurred page of
+history, and concerning whom we must rest content with knowing a few of
+the names.</p>
+
+<p>Yet progressive civilizations had long existed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the countries to the
+south, Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Persia. History was actively being
+made there, but it had not penetrated the mist-laden North. The Greeks
+founded colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea, but they
+troubled themselves little about the seething tribes with whom they came
+there into contact. The land they called Scythia, and its people
+Scythians, but the latter were scarcely known until about 500 <span class="ampm">B.C.</span>, when
+Darius, the great Persian king, crossed the Danube and invaded their
+country. He found life there in abundance, and more warlike activity
+than he relished, for the fierce nomads drove him and his army in terror
+from their soil, and only fortune and a bridge of boats saved them from
+perishing.</p>
+
+<p>It was this event that first gave the people of old Russia a place on
+the page of history. Herodotus, the charming old historian and
+story-teller, wrote down for us all he could learn about them, though
+what he says has probably as much fancy in it as fact.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that these broad levels were formerly inhabited by a people
+called the Cimmerians, who were driven out by the Scythians and went&mdash;it
+is hard to tell whither. A shadow of their name survives in the Crimea,
+and some believe that they were the ancestors of the Cymri, the Celts of
+the West.</p>
+
+<p>The Scythians, who thus came into history like a cloud of war, made the
+god of war their chief deity. The temples which they built to this deity
+were of the simplest, being great heaps of fagots, which were added to
+every year as they rotted away under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> rains. Into the top of the
+heap was thrust an ancient iron sword as the emblem of the god. To this
+grim symbol more victims were sacrificed than to all the other deities;
+not only cattle and horses, but prisoners taken in battle, of whom one
+out of every hundred died to honor the god, their blood being caught in
+vessels and poured on the sword.</p>
+
+<p>A people with a worship like this must have been savage in grain. To
+prove their prowess in war they cut off the heads of the slain and
+carried them to the king. Like the Indians of the West, they scalped
+their enemies. These scalps, softened by treatment, they used as napkins
+at their meals, and even sewed them together to make cloaks. Here was a
+refinement in barbarity undreamed of by the Indians.</p>
+
+<p>These were not their only savage customs. They drank the blood of the
+first enemy killed by them in battle, and at their high feasts used
+drinking-cups made from the skulls of their foes. When a chief died
+cruelty was given free vent. The slaves and horses of the dead chief
+were slain at his grave, and placed upright like a circle of horsemen
+around the royal tomb, being impaled on sharp timbers to keep them in an
+upright position.</p>
+
+<p>Tribes with habits like these have no history. There is nothing in their
+careers worth the telling, and no one to tell it if there were. Their
+origin, manners, and customs may be of interest, but not their
+intertribal quarrels.</p>
+
+<p>Herodotus tells us of others besides the Scythians. There were the
+Melanchlainai, who dressed only in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> black; the Neuri, who once a year
+changed into wolves; the Agathyrei, who took pleasure in trinkets of
+gold; the Sauromati, children of the Amazons, or women warriors; the
+Argippei, bald-headed and snub-nosed from their birth; the Issedones,
+who feasted on the dead bodies of their parents; the Arimaspians, a
+one-eyed race; the Gryphons, guardians of great hoards of gold; the
+Hyperboreans, in whose land white feathers (snow-flakes?) fell all the
+year round from the skies.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the mixture of fact and fable which Herodotus learned from the
+traders and travellers of Greece. We know nothing of these tribes but
+the names. Their ancestors may have dwelt for thousands of years on the
+Russian plains; their descendants may still make up part of the great
+Russian people and retain some of their old-time habits and customs; but
+of their doings history takes no account.</p>
+
+<p>The Scythians, who occupied the south of Russia, came into contact with
+the Greek trading colonies north of the Black Sea, and gained from them
+some little veneer of civilization. They aided the Greeks in their
+commerce, took part in their caravans to the north and east, and spent
+some portion of the profits of their peaceful labor in objects of art
+made for them by Greek artists.</p>
+
+<p>This we know, for some of these objects still exist. Jewels owned by the
+ancient Scythians may be seen to-day in Russian museums. Chief in
+importance among these relics are two vases of wonderful interest kept
+in the museum of the Hermitage, at St. Petersburg.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> These are the silver
+vase of Nicopol and the golden vase of Kertch, both probably as old as
+the days of Herodotus. These vases speak with history. On the silver
+vase we may see the faces and forms of the ancient Scythians, men with
+long hair and beards and large features. They resemble in dress and
+aspect the people who now dwell in the same country, and they are shown
+in the act of breaking in and bridling their horses, just as their
+descendants do to-day. Progress has had no place on these broad plains.
+There life stands still.</p>
+
+<p>On the golden vase appear figures who wear pointed caps and dresses
+ornamented in the Asiatic fashion, while in their hands are bows of
+strange shape. But their features are those of men of Aryan descent, and
+in them we seem to see the far-off progenitors of the modern Russians.</p>
+
+<p>Herodotus, in his chatty fashion, tells us various problematical stories
+of the Scythians, premising that he does not believe them all himself. A
+tradition with them was that they were the youngest of all nations,
+being descended from Targitaus, one of the numerous sons of Jove. The
+three children of Targitaus for a time ruled the land, but their joint
+rule was changed by a prodigy. There fell from the skies four implements
+of gold,&mdash;a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup. The oldest
+brother hastened eagerly to seize this treasure, but it burst into flame
+at his approach. The second then made the attempt, but was in his turn
+driven back by the scorching flames. But on the approach of the youngest
+the flames vanished, the gold grew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> cool, and he was enabled to take
+possession of the heaven-given implements. His elders then withdrew from
+the throne, warned by this sign from the gods, and left him sole ruler.
+The story proceeds that the royal gold was guarded with the greatest
+care, yearly sacrifices being made in its honor. If its guardian fell
+asleep in the open air during the sacrifices he was doomed to die within
+the year. But as reward for the faithful keeping of his trust he
+received as much land as he could ride round on horseback in a day.</p>
+
+<p>The old historian further tells us that the Scythian warriors invaded
+the kingdom of Media, which they conquered and held for twenty-eight
+years. During this long absence strange events were taking place at
+home. They had held many slaves, whom it was their custom to blind, as
+they used them only to stir the milk in the great pot in which koumiss,
+their favorite beverage, was made.</p>
+
+<p>The wives of the absent warriors, after years of waiting, gave up all
+hopes of their return and married the blind slaves; and while the
+masters tarried in Media the children of their slaves grew to manhood.</p>
+
+<p>The time at length came when the warriors, filled with home-sickness,
+left the subject realm to seek their native plains. As they marched
+onward they found themselves stopped by a great dike, dug from the
+Tauric Mountains to Lake M&aelig;otis, behind which stood a host of youthful
+warriors. They were the children of the slaves, who were determined to
+keep the land for themselves. Many battles were fought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> but the young
+men held their own bravely, and the warriors were in despair.</p>
+
+<p>Then one of them cried to his fellows,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What foolish thing are we doing, Scythians? These men are our slaves,
+and every one of them that falls is a loss to us; while each of us that
+falls reduces our number. Take my advice, lay aside spear and bow, and
+let each man take his horsewhip and go boldly up to them. So long as
+they see us with arms in our hands they fancy that they are our equals
+and fight us bravely. But let them see us with only whips, and they will
+remember that they are slaves and flee like dogs from before our faces."</p>
+
+<p>It happened as he said. As the Scythians approached with their whips the
+youths were so astounded that they forgot to fight, and ran away in
+trembling terror. And so the warriors came home, and the slaves were put
+to making koumiss again.</p>
+
+<p>These fabulous stories of the early people of Russia may be followed by
+an account of their funeral customs, left for us by an Arabian writer
+who visited their land in the ninth century. He tells us that for ten
+days after the death of one of their great men his friends bewailed him,
+showing the depth of their grief by getting drunk on koumiss over his
+corpse.</p>
+
+<p>Then the men-servants were asked which of them would be buried with his
+master. The one that consented was instantly seized and strangled. The
+same question was put to the women, one of whom was sure to accept.
+There may have been some rare future reward offered for death in such a
+cause.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> The willing victim was bathed, adorned, and treated like a
+princess, and did nothing but drink and sing while the obsequies lasted.</p>
+
+<p>On the day fixed for the end of the ceremonies, the dead man was laid in
+a boat, with part of his arms and garments. His favorite horse was slain
+and laid in the boat, and with it the corpse of the man-servant. Then
+the young girl was led up. She took off her jewels, a glass of kvass was
+put in her hand, and she sang a farewell song.</p>
+
+<p>"All at once," says the writer, "the old woman who accompanied her, and
+whom they called the angel of death, bade her to drink quickly, and to
+enter into the cabin of the boat, where lay the dead body of her master.
+At these words she changed color, and as she made some difficulty about
+entering, the old woman seized her by the hair, dragged her in, and
+entered with her. The men immediately began to beat their shields with
+clubs to prevent the other girls from hearing the cries of their
+companion, which might prevent them one day dying for their master."</p>
+
+<p>The boat was then set on fire, and served as a funeral pile, in which
+living and dead alike were consumed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>OLEG THE VARANGIAN.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">For</span> ages and ages, none can say how many, the great plain of Russia
+existed as a nursery of tribes, some wandering with their herds, some
+dwelling in villages and tilling their fields, but all warlike and all
+barbarians. And over this plain at intervals swept conquering hordes
+from Asia, the terrible Huns, the devastating Avars, and others of
+varied names. But as yet the Russia we know did not exist, and its very
+name had never been heard.</p>
+
+<p>As time went on, the people in the centre and north of the country
+became peaceful and prosperous, since the invaders did not cross their
+borders, and a great and wealthy city arose, whose commerce in time
+extended on the east as far as Persia and India, on the south to
+Constantinople, and on the west far through the Baltic Sea. Though
+seated in Russia, still largely a land of barbarous tribes, Novgorod
+became one of the powerful cities of the earth, making its strength felt
+far and wide, placing the tribes as far as the Ural Mountains under
+tribute, and growing so strong and warlike that it became a common
+saying among the people, "Who can oppose God and Novgorod the Great?"</p>
+
+<p>But trouble arose for Novgorod. Its chief trade lay through the Baltic
+Sea, and here its ships met those terrible Scandinavian pirates who were
+then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> the ocean's lords. Among these bold rovers were the Danes who
+descended on England, the Normans who won a new home in France, the
+daring voyagers who discovered Iceland and Greenland, and those who
+sailed up the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, conquering
+kingdoms as they went.</p>
+
+<p>To some of these Scandinavians the merchants of Novgorod turned for aid
+against the others. Bands of them had made their way into Russia and
+settled on the eastern shores of the Baltic. To these the Novgorodians
+appealed in their trouble, and in the year 862 asked three Varangian
+brothers, Rurik, Sinaf, and Truvor, to come to their aid. The warlike
+brothers did so, seated themselves on the frontier of the republic of
+Novgorod, drove off its foes&mdash;and became its foes themselves. The people
+of Novgorod, finding their trade at the mercy of their allies, submitted
+to their power, and in 864 invited Rurik to become their king. His two
+brothers had meantime died.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that the Russian empire began, for the Varangians came from
+a country called Ross, from which their new realm gained the name of
+Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Rurik took the title of Grand Prince, made his principal followers lords
+of the cities of his new realm, and the republic of Novgorod came to an
+end in form, though not in spirit. It is interesting to note at this
+point that Russia, which began as a republic, has ended as one of the
+most absolute of monarchies. The first step in its subjection was taken
+when Novgorod invited Rurik the Varangian to be its prince; the other
+steps came later, one by one.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p><p>For fifteen years Rurik remained lord of Novgorod, and then died and
+left his four-year-old son Igor as his heir, with Oleg, his kinsman, as
+regent of the realm. It is the story of Oleg, as told by Nestor, the
+gossipy old Russian chronicler, that we propose here to tell, but it
+seemed useful to precede it by an account of how the Russian empire came
+into existence.</p>
+
+<p>Oleg was a man of his period, a barbarian and a soldier born; brave,
+crafty, adventurous, faithful to Igor, his ward, cruel and treacherous
+to others. Under his rule the Russian dominions rapidly and widely
+increased.</p>
+
+<p>At an earlier date two Varangians, Askhold and Dir by name, had made
+their way far to the south, where they became masters of the city of
+Kief. They even dared to attack Constantinople, but were driven back
+from that great stronghold of the South.</p>
+
+<p>It by no means pleased Oleg to find this powerful kingdom founded in the
+land which he had set out to subdue. He determined that Kief should be
+his, and in 882 made his way to its vicinity. But it was easier to reach
+than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were
+courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by
+force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem and
+treachery.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving his army, and taking Igor with him, he floated down the Dnieper
+with a few boats, in which a number of armed men were hidden, and at
+length landed near the ancient city of Kief, which stood on high ground
+near the river. Placing his warriors in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> ambush, he sent a messenger to
+Askhold and Dir, with the statement that a party of Varangian merchants,
+whom the prince of Novgorod had sent to Greece, had just landed, and
+desired to see them as friends and men of their own race.</p>
+
+<p>Those were simple times, in which even the rulers of cities did not put
+on any show of state. On the contrary, the two princes at once left the
+city and went alone to meet the false merchants. They had no sooner
+arrived than Oleg threw off his mask. His followers sprang from their
+ambush, arms in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You are neither princes nor of princely birth," he cried; "but I am a
+prince, and this is the son of Rurik."</p>
+
+<p>And at a sign from his hand Askhold and Dir were laid dead at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>By this act of base treachery Oleg became the master of Kief. No one in
+the city ventured to resist the strong army which he quickly brought up,
+and the metropolis of the south opened its gates to the man who had
+wrought murder under the guise of war. It is not likely, though, that
+Oleg sought to justify his act on any grounds. In those barbarous days,
+when might made right, murder was too much an every-day matter to be
+deeply considered by any one.</p>
+
+<p>Oleg was filled with admiration of the city he had won. "Let Kief be the
+mother of all the Russian cities!" he exclaimed. And such it became, for
+he made it his capital, and for three centuries it remained the capital
+city of the Russian realm.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p><p>What he principally admired it for was its nearness to Constantinople,
+the capital of the great empire of the East, on which, like the former
+lords of Kief, he looked with greedy and envious eyes.</p>
+
+<p>For long centuries past Greece and the other countries of the South had
+paid little heed to the dwellers on the Russian plains, of whose
+scattered tribes they had no fear. But with the coming of the
+Varangians, the conquest of the tribes, and the founding of a
+wide-spread empire, a different state of affairs began, and from that
+day to this Constantinople has found the people of the steppes its most
+dangerous and persistent foes.</p>
+
+<p>Oleg was not long in making the Greek empire feel his heavy hand.
+Filling the minds of his followers and subjects with his own thirst for
+blood and plunder, he set out with an army of eighty thousand men, in
+two thousand barks, passed the cataracts of the Borysthenes, crossed the
+Black Sea, murdered the subjects of the empire in hosts, and, as the
+chronicles say, sailed overland with all sails set to the port of
+Constantinople itself. What he probably did was to have his vessels
+taken over a neck of land on wheels or rollers.</p>
+
+<p>Here he threw the imperial city into mortal terror, fixed his shield on
+the very gate of Constantinople, and forced the emperor to buy him off
+at the price of an enormous ransom. To the treaty made the Varangian
+warriors swore by their gods Perune and Voloss, by their rings, and by
+their swords,&mdash;gold and steel, the things they honored most and most
+desired.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p><p>Then back in triumph they sailed to Kief, rich with booty, and ever
+after hailing their leader as the Wise Man, or Magician. Eight years
+afterwards Oleg made a treaty of alliance and commerce with
+Constantinople, in which Greeks and Russians stood on equal footing.
+Russia had made a remarkable stride forward as a nation since Rurik was
+invited to Novgorod a quarter-century before.</p>
+
+<p>For thirty-three years Oleg held the throne. His was too strong a hand
+to yield its power to his ward. Igor must wait for Oleg's death. He had
+found a province; he left an empire. In his hands Russia grew into
+greatness, and from Novgorod to Kief and far and wide to the right and
+left stretched the lands won by his conquering sword.</p>
+
+<p>He was too great a man to die an ordinary death. According to the
+tradition, miracle had to do with his passing away. Nestor, the prince
+of Russian chroniclers, tells us the following story:</p>
+
+<p>Oleg had a favorite horse, which he rode alike in battle and in the
+hunt, until at length a prediction came from the soothsayers that death
+would overtake him through his cherished charger. Warrior as he was, he
+had the superstition of the pagan, and to avoid the predicted fate he
+sent his horse far away, and for years avoided even speaking of it.</p>
+
+<p>Then, moved by curiosity, he asked what had become of the banished
+animal.</p>
+
+<p>"It died years ago," was the reply; "only its bones remain."</p>
+
+<p>"So much for your soothsayers," he cried, with a contempt that was not
+unmixed with relief. "That,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> then, is all this prediction is worth! But
+where are the bones of my good old horse? I should like to see what
+little is left of him."</p>
+
+<p>He was taken to the spot where lay the skeleton of his old favorite, and
+gazed with some show of feeling on the bleaching bones of what had once
+been his famous war-horse. Then, setting his foot on the skull, he
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"So this is the creature that is destined to be my death."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a deadly serpent that lay coiled up within the skull
+darted out and fixed its poisonous fangs in the conqueror's foot. And
+thus ignobly he who had slain men by thousands and conquered an empire
+came to his death.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE VENGEANCE OF QUEEN OLGA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> death of Oleg brought Igor his ward, then nearly forty years of age,
+to the throne of Rurik his father. And the same old story of bloodshed
+and barbarity went on. In those days a king was king in name only. He
+was really but the chief of a band of plunderers, who dug wealth from
+the world with the sword instead of the spade, threw it away in wild
+orgies, and then hounded him into leading them to new wars.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the Northmen is everywhere the same. While in the West they
+were harrying England, France, and the Mediterranean countries with fire
+and sword, in the East their Varangian kinsmen were spreading
+devastation through Russia and the empire of the Greeks.</p>
+
+<p>Like his predecessor, Igor invaded this empire with a great army,
+landing in Asia Minor and treating the people with such brutal ferocity
+that no earthquake or volcano could have shown itself more merciless.
+His prisoners were slaughtered in the most barbarous manner, fire swept
+away all that havoc had left, and then the Russian prince sailed in
+triumph against Constantinople, with his ten thousand barks manned by
+murderers and laden with plunder.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>But the Greeks were now ready for their foes. Pouring on them the
+terrible Greek fire, they drove them back in dismay to Asia Minor, where
+they were met and routed by the land forces of the empire. In the end
+Igor hurried home with hardly a third of his great army.</p>
+
+<p>Three years afterward he again led an army in boats against
+Constantinople, but this time he was bought off by a tribute of gold,
+silver, and precious stuffs, as Oleg had been before him.</p>
+
+<p>Igor was now more than seventy years old, and naturally desired to spend
+the remainder of his days in peace, but his followers would not let him
+rest. The spoils and tribute of the Greeks had quickly disappeared from
+their open hands, and the warlike profligates demanded new plunder.</p>
+
+<p>"We are naked," they bitterly complained, "while the companions of
+Sveneld have beautiful arms and fine clothing. Come with us and levy
+contributions, that we and you may dwell in plenty together."</p>
+
+<p>Igor obeyed&mdash;he could not well help himself&mdash;and led them against the
+Drevlians, a neighboring nation already under tribute. Marching into
+their country, he forced them to pay still heavier tribute, and allowed
+his soldiers to plunder to their hearts' content.</p>
+
+<p>Then the warriors of Kief marched back, laden with spoils. But the
+wolfish instincts of Igor were aroused. More, he thought, might be
+squeezed out of the Drevlians, but he wanted this extra plunder for
+himself. So he sent his army on to Kief, and went back with a small
+force to the country of the Drevlians,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> where he held out his hand&mdash;with
+the sword in it&mdash;for more.</p>
+
+<p>He got more than he bargained for. The Drevlians, driven to extremity,
+came with arms instead of gold, attacked the king and his few followers,
+and killed the whole of them upon the spot. And thus in blood ended the
+career of this white-haired tribute-seeker.</p>
+
+<p>The fallen prince left behind him a widow named Olga and a son named
+Sviatoslaf, who was still a child, as Igor had been at the death of his
+father. So Olga became regent of the kingdom, and Sveneld was made
+leader of the army.</p>
+
+<p>How deeply Olga loved Igor we are not prepared to say, but we are told
+some strange tales of what she did to avenge him. These tales we may
+believe or not, as we please. They are legends only, like those of early
+Rome, but they are all the history we have, and so we repeat the story
+much as old Nestor has told it.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Igor filled the hearts of the Drevlians with hope. Their
+great enemy was gone; the new prince was a child: might they not gain
+power as well as liberty? Their prince Male should marry Olga the widow,
+and all would be well with them.</p>
+
+<p>So twenty of their leading men were sent to Kief, where they presented
+themselves to the queenly regent. Their offer of an alliance was made in
+terms suited to the manners of the times.</p>
+
+<p>"We have killed your husband," they said, "because he plundered and
+devoured like a wolf. But we would be at peace with you and yours. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+have good princes, under whom our country thrives. Come and marry our
+prince Male and be our queen."</p>
+
+<p>Olga listened like one who weighed the offer deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," she said, "my husband is dead, and I cannot bring him to
+life again. Your proposal seems good to me. Leave me now, and come again
+to-morrow, when I will entertain you before my people as you deserve.
+Return to your barks, and when my people come to you to-morrow, say to
+them, 'We will not go on horseback or on foot; you must carry us in our
+barks.' Thus you will be honored as I desire you to be."</p>
+
+<p>Back went the Drevlians, glad at heart, for the queen had seemed to them
+very gracious indeed. But Olga had a deep and wide pit dug before a
+house outside the city, and next day she went to that house and sent for
+the ambassadors.</p>
+
+<p>"We will not go on foot or on horseback," they said to the messengers;
+"carry us in our barks."</p>
+
+<p>"We are your slaves," answered the men of Kief. "Our ruler is slain, and
+our princess is willing to marry your prince."</p>
+
+<p>So they took up on their shoulders the barks, in which the Drevlians
+proudly sat like kings on their thrones, and carried them to the front
+of the house in which Olga awaited them with smiling lips but ruthless
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>There, at a sign from her hand, the ambassadors and the barks in which
+they sat were flung headlong into the yawning pit.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>"How do you like your entertainment?" asked the cruel queen.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" they cried, in terror, "pity us! Forgive us the death of Igor!"</p>
+
+<p>But they begged in vain, for at her command the pit was filled up and
+the Drevlians were buried alive.</p>
+
+<p>Then Olga sent messengers to the land of the Drevlians, with this
+message to their prince:</p>
+
+<p>"If you really wish for me, send me men of the highest consideration in
+your country, that my people may be induced to let me go, and that I may
+come to you with honor and dignity."</p>
+
+<p>This message had its effect. The chief men of the country were now sent
+as ambassadors. They entered Kief over the grave of their murdered
+countrymen without knowing where they trod, and came to the palace
+expecting to be hospitably entertained.</p>
+
+<p>Olga had a bath made ready for them, and sent them word,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"First take a bath, that you may refresh yourselves after the fatigue of
+your journey, then come into my presence."</p>
+
+<p>The bath was heated, and the Drevlians entered it. But, to their dismay,
+smoke soon began to circle round them, and flames flashed on their
+frightened eyes. They ran to the doors, but they were immovable. Olga
+had ordered them to be made fast and the house to be set on fire, and
+the miserable bathers were all burned alive.</p>
+
+<p>But even this terrible revenge was not enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> for the implacable widow.
+Those were days when news crept slowly, and the Drevlians did not dream
+of Olga's treachery. Once more she sent them a deceitful message: "I am
+about to repair to you, and beg you to get ready a large quantity of
+hydromel in the place where my husband was killed, that I may weep over
+his tomb and honor him with the trizna [funeral banquet]."</p>
+
+<p>The Drevlians, full of joy at this message, gathered honey in quantities
+and brewed it into hydromel. Then Olga sought the tomb, followed by a
+small guard who were only lightly armed. For a while she wept over the
+tomb. Then she ordered a great mound of honor to be heaped over it. When
+this was done she directed the trizna to be set out.</p>
+
+<p>The Drevlians drank freely, while the men of Kief served them with the
+intoxicating beverage.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are the friends whom we sent to you?" they asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They are coming with the friends of my husband," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>And so the feast went on until the unsuspecting Drevlians were stupid
+with drink. Then Olga bade her guards draw their weapons and slay her
+foes, and a great slaughter began. When it ended, five thousand
+Drevlians lay dead at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Olga's revenge was far from being complete: her thirst for blood grew as
+it was fed. She returned to Kief, collected her army, took her young son
+with her that he might early learn the art of war, and returned inspired
+by the rage of vengeance to the land of the Drevlians.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p><p>Here she laid waste the country and destroyed the towns. In the end she
+came to the capital, Korosten, and laid siege to it. Its name meant
+"wall of bark," so that it was, no doubt, a town of wood, as probably
+all the Russian towns at that time were.</p>
+
+<p>The siege went on, but the inhabitants defended themselves obstinately,
+for they knew now the spirit of the woman with whom they had to contend.
+So a long time passed and Korosten still held out.</p>
+
+<p>Finding that force would not serve, Olga tried stratagem, in which she
+was such an adept.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you hold out so foolishly?" she said. "You know that all your
+other towns are in my power, and your countrypeople are peacefully
+tilling their fields while you are uselessly dying of hunger. You would
+be wise to yield; you have no more to fear from me; I have taken full
+revenge for my slain husband."</p>
+
+<p>The Drevlians, to conciliate her, offered a tribute of honey and furs.
+This she refused, with a show of generosity, and said that she would ask
+no more from them than a tribute of a pigeon and three sparrows from
+each house.</p>
+
+<p>Gladdened by the lightness of this request, the Drevlians quickly
+gathered the birds asked for, and sent them out to the invading army.
+They did not dream what treachery lay in Olga's cruel heart. That
+evening she let all the birds loose with lighted matches tied to their
+tails. Back to their nests in the town they flew, and soon Korosten was
+in flames in a thousand places.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p><p>In terror the inhabitants fled through their gates, but the soldiers of
+the bloodthirsty queen awaited them outside, sword in hand, with orders
+to cut them down without mercy as they appeared. The prince and all the
+leading men of the state perished, and only the lowest of the populace
+were left alive, while the whole land thereafter was laid under a load
+of tribute so heavy that it devastated the country like an invading army
+and caused the people to groan bitterly beneath the burden.</p>
+
+<p>And thus it was that Olga the widow took revenge upon the murderers of
+her fallen lord.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>VLADIMIR THE GREAT.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Vladimir</span>, Grand Prince of Russia before and after the year 1000, won the
+name not only of Vladimir the Great but of St. Vladimir, though he was
+as great a reprobate as he was a soldier and monarch, and as
+unregenerate a sinner as ever sat on a throne. But it was he who made
+Russia a Christian country, and in reward the Russian Church still looks
+upon him as "coequal with the Apostles." What he did to deserve this
+high honor we shall see.</p>
+
+<p>Sviatoslaf, the son of Olga, had proved a hardy soldier. He disdained
+the palace and lived in the camp. In his marches he took no tent or
+baggage, but slept in the open air, lived on horse-flesh broiled by
+himself upon the coals, and showed all the endurance of a Cossack
+warrior born in the snows. After years of warfare he fell on the field
+of battle, and his skull, ornamented with a circle of gold, became a
+drinking-cup for the prince of the Petchenegans, by whose hands he had
+been slain. His empire was divided between his three sons, Yaropolk
+reigning in Kief, Oleg becoming prince of the Drevlians, and Vladimir
+taking Rurik's old capital of Novgorod.</p>
+
+<p>These brothers did not long dwell in harmony. War broke out between
+Yaropolk and Oleg, and the latter was killed. Vladimir, fearing that his
+turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> would come next, fled to the country of the Varangians, and
+Yaropolk became lord over all Russia. It is the story of the fugitive
+prince, and how he made his way from flight to empire and from empire to
+sainthood, that we are now about to tell.</p>
+
+<p>For two years Vladimir dwelt with his Varangian kinsmen, during which
+time he lived the wild life of a Norseman, joining the bold vikings in
+their raids for booty far and wide over the seas of Europe. Then,
+gathering a large band of Varangian adventurers, he returned to
+Novgorod, drove out the men of Yaropolk, and sent word by them to his
+brother that he would soon call upon him at Kief.</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir quickly proved himself a prince of barbarian instincts. In
+Polotsk ruled Rogvolod, a Varangian prince, whose daughter Rogneda,
+famed for her beauty, was betrothed to Yaropolk. Vladimir demanded her
+hand, but received an insulting reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I will never unboot the son of a slave," said the haughty princess.</p>
+
+<p>It was the custom at that time for brides, on the wedding night, to pull
+off the boots of their husbands; and Vladimir's mother had been one of
+Queen Olga's slave women.</p>
+
+<p>But insults like this, to men like Vladimir, are apt to breed bloodshed.
+Hot with revengeful fury, he marched against Polotsk, killed in battle
+Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced the disdainful princess to accept
+his hand still red with her father's blood.</p>
+
+<p>Then he marched against Kief, where Yaropolk, who seems to have had more
+ambition than courage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> shut himself up within the walls. These walls
+were strong, the people were faithful, and Kief might long have defied
+its assailant had not treachery dwelt within. Vladimir had secretly
+bought over a villain named Blude, one of Yaropolk's trusted
+councillors, who filled his master's mind with suspicion of the people
+of Kief and persuaded him to fly for safety. His flight gave Kief into
+his brother's hands.</p>
+
+<p>To Rodnia fled the fugitive prince, where he was closely besieged by
+Vladimir, to whose aid came a famine so fierce that it still gives point
+to a common Russian proverb. Flight or surrender became necessary.
+Yaropolk might have found strong friends among some of the powerful
+native tribes, but the voice of the traitor was still at his ear, and at
+Blude's suggestion he gave himself up to Vladimir. It was like the sheep
+yielding himself to the wolf. By the victor's order Yaropolk was slain
+in his father's palace.</p>
+
+<p>And now the traitor sought his reward. Vladimir felt that it was to
+Blude he owed his empire, and for three days he so loaded him with
+honors and dignities that the false-hearted wretch deemed himself the
+greatest among the Russians.</p>
+
+<p>But the villain had been playing with edge tools. At the end of the
+three days Vladimir called Blude before him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have kept all my promises to you," he said. "I have treated you as my
+friend; your honors exceed your highest wishes; I have made you lord
+among my lords. But now," he continued, and his voice grew terrible,
+"the judge succeeds the benefactor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> Traitor and assassin of your
+prince, I condemn you to death."</p>
+
+<p>And at his stern command the startled and trembling traitor was struck
+dead in his presence.</p>
+
+<p>The tide of affairs had strikingly turned. Vladimir, late a fugitive,
+was now lord of all the realm of Russia. His power assured, he showed
+himself in a new aspect. Yaropolk's widow, a Greek nun of great beauty,
+was forced to become his wife. Not content with two, he continued to
+marry until he had no less than six wives, while he filled his palaces
+with the daughters of his subjects until they numbered eight hundred in
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"Thereby hangs a tale," as Shakespeare says. Rogneda, Vladimir's first
+wife, had forgiven him for the murder of her father and brothers, but
+could not forgive him for the insult of turning her out of his palace
+and putting other women in her place. She determined to be revenged.</p>
+
+<p>One day when he had gone to see her in the lonely abode to which she had
+been banished, he fell asleep in her presence. Here was the opportunity
+her heart craved. Seizing a dagger, she was on the point of stabbing him
+where he lay, when Vladimir awoke and stopped the blow. While the
+frightened woman stood trembling before him, he furiously bade her
+prepare for death, as she should die by his own hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Put on your wedding dress," he harshly commanded; "seek your handsomest
+apartment, and stretch yourself on the sumptuous bed you there possess.
+Die you must, but you have been honored<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> as the wife of Vladimir, and
+shall not meet an ignoble death."</p>
+
+<p>Rogneda did as she was bidden, yet hope had not left her heart, and she
+taught her young son Isiaslaf a part which she wished him to play. When
+the frowning prince entered the apartment where lay his condemned wife,
+he was met by the boy, who presented him with a drawn sword, saying,
+"You are not alone, father. Your son will be witness to your deed."</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir's expression changed as he looked at the appealing face of the
+child.</p>
+
+<p>"Who thought of seeing you here?" he cried, and, flinging the sword to
+the floor, he hastily left the room.</p>
+
+<p>Calling his nobles together, he told them what had happened and asked
+their advice.</p>
+
+<p>"Prince," they said, "you should spare the culprit for the sake of the
+child. Our advice is that you make the boy lord of Rogvolod's
+principality."</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir did so, sending Rogneda with her son to rule over her father's
+realm, where he built a new city which he named after the boy.</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir had been born a pagan, and a pagan he was still, worshipping
+the Varangian deities, in particular the god Perune, of whom he had a
+statue erected on a hill near his palace, adorned with a silver head. On
+the same sacred hill were planted the statues of other idols, and
+Vladimir proposed to restore the old human sacrifices by offering one of
+his own people as a victim to the gods.</p>
+
+<p>For this purpose there was selected a young <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Varangian who, with his
+father, had adopted the Christian faith. The father refused to give up
+his son, and the enraged people, who looked on the refusal as an insult
+to their prince and their gods, broke into the house and murdered both
+father and son. These two have since been canonized by the Russian
+Church as the only martyrs to its faith.</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir by this time had become great in dominion, his warlike prowess
+extending the borders of Russia on all sides. The nations to the south
+saw that a great kingdom had arisen on their northern border, ruled by a
+warlike and conquering prince, and it was deemed wise to seek to win him
+from the worship of idols to a more elevated faith. Askhold and Dir had
+been baptized as Christians. Olga, after her bloody revenge, had gone to
+Constantinople and been baptized by the patriarch. But the nation
+continued pagan, Vladimir was an idolater in grain, and a great field
+lay open for missionary zeal.</p>
+
+<p>No less than four of the peoples of the south sought to make a convert
+of this powerful prince. The Bulgarians endeavored to win him to the
+religion of Mohammed, picturing to him in alluring language the charms
+of their paradise, with its lovely houris. But he must give up wine.
+This was more than he was ready to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Wine is the delight of the Russians," he said: "we cannot do without
+it."</p>
+
+<p>The envoys of the Christian churches and the Jewish faith also sought to
+win him over. The appeal of the Jews, however, failed to impress him,
+and he dismissed them with the remark that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> had no country, and
+that he had no inclination to join hands with wanderers under the ban of
+Heaven. There remained the Christians, comprising the Roman and Greek
+Churches, at that time in unison. Of these the Greek Church, the claims
+of which were presented to him by an advocate from Constantinople,
+appealed to him most strongly, since its doctrines had been accepted by
+Queen Olga.</p>
+
+<p>As may be seen, religion with Vladimir was far more a matter of policy
+than of piety. The gods of his fathers, to whom he had done such honor,
+had no abiding place in his heart; and that belief which would be most
+to his advantage was for him the best.</p>
+
+<p>To settle the question he sent ten of his chief boyars, or nobles, to
+the south, that they might examine and report on the religions of the
+different countries. They were not long in coming to a decision.
+Mohammedanism and Catholicism, they said, they had found only in poor
+and barbarous provinces. Judaism had no land to call its own. But the
+Greek faith dwelt in a magnificent metropolis, and its ceremonies were
+full of pomp and solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Greek religion were not the best," they said, in conclusion,
+"Olga, your ancestress, and the wisest of mortals, would never have
+thought of embracing it."</p>
+
+<p>Pomp and solemnity won the day, and Vladimir determined to follow Olga's
+example. As to what religion meant in itself he seems to have thought
+little and cared less. His method of becoming a Christian was so
+original that it is well worth the telling.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p><p>Since the days of Olga Kief had possessed Christian churches and
+priests, and Vladimir might easily have been baptized without leaving
+home. But this was far too simple a process for a prince of his dignity.
+He must be baptized by a bishop of the parent Church, and the
+missionaries who were to convert his people must come from the central
+home of the faith.</p>
+
+<p>Should he ask the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be
+too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The
+haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a
+promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests
+and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the
+new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with the object
+of winning a new religion.</p>
+
+<p>Gathering a large army, Vladimir marched to the Crimea, where stood the
+rich and powerful Greek city of Kherson. The ruins of this city may
+still be seen near the modern Sevastopol. To it he laid siege, warning
+the inhabitants that it would be wise in them to yield, for he was
+prepared to remain three years before their walls.</p>
+
+<p>The Khersonites proved obstinate, and for six months he besieged them
+closely. But no progress was made, and it began to look as if Vladimir
+would never become a Christian in his chosen mode. A traitor within the
+walls, however, solved the difficulty. He shot from the ramparts an
+arrow to which a letter was attached, in which the Russians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> were told
+that the city obtained all its fresh water from a spring near their
+camp, to which ran underground pipes. Vladimir cut the pipes, and the
+city, in peril of the horrors of thirst, was forced to yield.</p>
+
+<p>Baptism was now to be had from the parent source, but Vladimir was still
+not content. He demanded to be united by ties of blood to the emperors
+of the southern realm, asking for the hand of Anna, the emperor's
+sister, and threatening to take Constantinople if his proposal were
+rejected.</p>
+
+<p>Never before had a convert come with such conditions. The princess Anna
+had no desire for marriage with this haughty barbarian, but reasons of
+state were stronger than questions of taste, and the emperors (there
+were two of them at that time) yielded. Vladimir, having been baptized
+under the name of Basil, married the princess Anna, and the city he had
+taken as a token of his pious zeal was restored to his new kinsmen. All
+that he took back to Russia with him were a Christian wife, some bishops
+and priests, sacred vessels and books, images of saints, and a number of
+consecrated relics.</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir displayed a zeal in his new faith in accordance with the
+trouble he had taken to win it. The old idols he had worshipped were now
+the most despised inmates of his realm. Perune, as the greatest of them
+all, was treated with the greatest indignity. The wooden image of the
+god was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged to the Borysthenes,
+twelve stout soldiers belaboring it with cudgels as it went. The banks
+reached, it was flung with disdain into the river.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>At Novgorod the god was treated with like indignity, but did not bear
+it with equal patience. The story goes that, being flung from a bridge
+into the Volkhof, the image of Perune rose to the surface of the water,
+threw a staff upon the bridge, and cried out in a terrifying voice,
+"Citizens, that is what I leave you in remembrance of me."</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of this legend it was long the custom in that city, on
+the day which was kept as the anniversary of the god, for the young
+people to run about with sticks in their hands, striking one another
+unawares.</p>
+
+<p>As for the Russians in general, they discarded their old worship as
+easily as the prince had thrown overboard their idols. One day a
+proclamation was issued at Kief, commanding all the people to repair to
+the river-bank the next day, there to be baptized. They assented without
+a murmur, saying, "If it were not good to be baptized, the prince and
+the boyars would never submit to it."</p>
+
+<p>These were not the only signs of Vladimir's zeal. He built churches, he
+gave alms freely, he set out public repasts in imitation of the
+love-feasts of the early Christians. His piety went so far that he even
+forbore to shed the blood of criminals or of the enemies of his country.</p>
+
+<p>But horror of bloodshed did not lie long on Vladimir's conscience. In
+his later life he had wars in plenty, and the blood of his enemies was
+shed as freely as water. These wars were largely against the
+Petchenegans, the most powerful of his foes. And in connection with them
+there is a story extant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> which has its parallel in the history of many
+another country.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that in one of their campaigns the two armies came face to face
+on the opposite sides of a small stream. The prince of the Petchenegans
+now proposed to Vladimir to settle their quarrel by single combat and
+thus spare the lives of their people. The side whose champion was
+vanquished should bind itself to a peace lasting for three years.</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir was loath to consent, as he felt sure that his opponents had
+ready a champion of mighty power. He felt forced in honor to accept the
+challenge, but asked for delay that he might select a worthy champion.</p>
+
+<p>Whom to select he knew not. No soldier of superior strength and skill
+presented himself. Uneasiness and agitation filled his mind. But at this
+critical interval an old man, who served in the army with four of his
+sons, came to him, saying that he had at home a fifth son of
+extraordinary strength, whom he would offer as champion.</p>
+
+<p>The young man was sent for in great haste. On his arrival, to test his
+powers, a bull was sent against him which had been goaded into fury with
+hot irons. The young giant stopped the raging brute, knocked him down,
+and tore off great handfuls of his skin and flesh. Hope came to
+Vladimir's soul on witnessing this wonderful feat.</p>
+
+<p>The day arrived. The champions advanced between the camps. The
+Petchenegan warrior laughed in scorn on seeing his beardless antagonist.
+But when they came to blows he found himself seized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> and crushed as in a
+vice in the arms of his boyish foe, and was flung, a lifeless body, to
+the earth. On seeing this the Petchenegans fled in dismay, while the
+Russians, forgetting their pledge, pursued and slaughtered them without
+mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Vladimir at length (1015 <span class="ampm">A.D.</span>) came to his end. His son Yaroslaf, whom
+he had made ruler of Novgorod, had refused to pay tribute, and the old
+prince, forced to march against his rebel son, died of grief on the way.</p>
+
+<p>With all his faults, Vladimir deserved the title of Great which his
+country has given him. He put down the turbulent tribes, planted
+colonies in the desert, built towns, and embellished his cities with
+churches, palaces, and other buildings, for which workmen were brought
+from Greece. Russia grew rapidly under his rule. He established schools
+which the sons of the nobles were made to attend. And though he was but
+a poor pattern for a saint, he had the merit of finding Russia pagan and
+leaving it Christian.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image2.jpg" width="400" height="550" alt="CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW." title="" />
+<span class="caption">CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE LAWGIVER OF RUSSIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Russia of the year 1000 lay deep in the age of barbarism. Vladimir
+had made it Christian in name, but it was far from Christian in thought
+or deed. It was a land without fixed laws, without settled government,
+without schools, without civilized customs, but with abundance of
+ignorance, cruelty, and superstition.</p>
+
+<p>It was strangely made up. In the north lay the great commercial city of
+Novgorod, which, though governed by princes of the house of Rurik, was a
+republic in form and in fact. It possessed its popular assembly, of
+which every citizen was a member with full right to vote, and at whose
+meetings the prince was not permitted to appear. The sound of a famous
+bell, the Vetchevoy, called the people together, to decide on questions
+of peace and war, or to elect magistrates, and sometimes the bishop, or
+even the prince. The prince had to swear to carry out the ancient laws
+of the republic and not attempt to lay taxes on the citizens or to
+interfere with their trade. They made him gifts, but paid him no taxes.
+They decided how many hours he should give to pleasure and how many to
+business; and they expelled some of their princes who thought themselves
+beyond the power of the laws.</p>
+
+<p>It seems strange that the absolute Russia of to-day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> should then have
+possessed one of the freest of the cities of Europe. Novgorod was not
+only a city, it was a state. The provinces far and wide around were
+subject to it, and governed by its prince, who had in them an authority
+much greater than he possessed over the proud civic merchants and money
+lords.</p>
+
+<p>In the south, on the contrary, lay the great imperial city of Kief, the
+capital of the realm, and the seat of a government as arbitrary as that
+of Novgorod was free. Here dwelt the grand prince as an irresponsible
+autocrat, making his will the law, and forcing all the provinces, even
+haughty Novgorod, to pay a tax which bore the slavish title of tribute.
+Here none could vote, no assembly of citizens ever met, and the only
+restraint on the prince was that of his warlike and turbulent nobles,
+who often forced him to yield to their wishes. The government was a
+drifting rather than a settled one. It had no anchors out, but was moved
+about at the whim of the prince and his unruly lords.</p>
+
+<p>Under these two forms of government lay still a third. Rural Russia was
+organized on a democratic principle which still prevails throughout that
+broad land. This is the principle of the Mir, or village community,
+which most of the people of the earth once possessed, but which has
+everywhere passed away except in Russia and India. It is the principle
+of the commune, of public instead of private property. The land of a
+Russian village belongs to the people as a whole, not to individuals. It
+is divided up among them for tillage, but no man can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> claim the fields
+he tills as his own, and for thousands of years what is known as
+communism has prevailed on Russian soil.</p>
+
+<p>The government of the village is purely democratic. All the people meet
+and vote for their village magistrate, who decides, with the aid of a
+council of the elders, all the questions which arise within its
+confines, one of them being the division of the land. Thus at bottom
+Russia is a field sown thick with little communistic republics, though
+at top it is a despotism. The government of Novgorod doubtless grew out
+of that of the village. The republican city has long since passed away,
+but the seed of democracy remains planted deeply in the village
+community.</p>
+
+<p>All this is preliminary to the story of the Russian lawgiver and his
+laws, which we have set out to tell. This famous person was no other
+than that Yaroslaf, prince of Novgorod, and son of Vladimir the Great,
+whose refusal to pay tribute had caused his father to die of grief.</p>
+
+<p>Yaroslaf was the fifth able ruler of the dynasty of Rurik. The story of
+his young life resembles that of his father. He found his brother strong
+and threatening, and designed to fly from Novgorod and join the
+Varangians as a viking lord, as his father had done before him. But the
+Novgorodians proved his friends, destroyed the ships that were to carry
+him away, and provided him with money to raise a new army. With this he
+defeated his base brother, who had already killed or driven into exile
+all their other brothers. The result was that Yaroslof, like his father,
+became sovereign of all Russia.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>But though this new grand prince extended his dominions by the sword,
+it was not as a soldier, but as a legislator, that he won fame. His
+genius was not shown on the field of battle, but in the legislative
+council, and Russia reveres Yaroslaf the Wise as its first maker of
+laws.</p>
+
+<p>The free institutions of Novgorod, of which we have spoken, were by him
+sustained and strengthened. Many new cities were founded under his
+beneficent rule. Schools were widely established, in one of which three
+hundred of the youth of Novgorod were educated. A throng of Greek
+priests were invited into the land, since there were none of Russian
+birth to whom he could confide the duty of teaching the young. He gave
+toleration to the idolaters who still existed, and when the people of
+Suzdal were about to massacre some hapless women whom they accused of
+having brought on a famine by sorcery, he stayed their hands and saved
+the poor victims from death. The Russian Church owed its first national
+foundation to him, for he declared that the bishops of the land should
+no longer depend for appointment on the Patriarch of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>There are no startling or dramatic stories to be told about Yaroslaf.
+The heroes of peace are not the men who make the world's dramas. But it
+is pleasant, after a season spent with princes who lived for war and
+revenge, and who even made war to obtain baptism, to rest awhile under
+the green boughs and beside the pleasant waters of a reign that became
+famous for the triumphs of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Under Yaroslaf Russia united itself by ties of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> blood to Western Europe.
+His sons married Greek, German, and English princesses; his sister
+became queen of Poland; his three daughters were queens of Norway,
+Hungary, and France. Scandinavian in origin, the dynasty of Rurik was
+reaching out hands of brotherhood towards its kinsmen in the West.</p>
+
+<p>But it is as a law-maker that Yaroslaf is chiefly known. Before his time
+the empire had no fixed code of laws. To say that it was without law
+would not be correct. Every people, however ignorant, has its laws of
+custom, unwritten edicts, the birth of the ages, which have grown up
+stage by stage, and which are only slowly outgrown as the tribe develops
+into the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Russia had, besides Novgorod, other commercial cities, with republican
+institutions. Kief was certainly not without law. And the many tribes of
+hunters, shepherds, and farmers must have had their legal customs. But
+with all this there was no code for the empire, no body of written laws.
+The first of these was prepared about 1018 by Yaroslaf, for Novgorod
+alone, but in time became the law of all the land. This early code of
+Russian law is a remarkable one, and goes farther than history at large
+in teaching us the degree of civilization of Russia at that date.</p>
+
+<p>In connection with it the chronicles tell a curious story. In 1018, we
+are told, Novgorod, having grown weary of the insults and oppression of
+its Varangian lords and warriors, killed them all. Angry at this,
+Yaroslaf enticed the leading Novgorodians into his palace and
+slaughtered them in reprisal. But at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> this critical interval, when his
+guards were slain and his subjects in rebellion, he found himself
+threatened by his ambitious brother. In despair he turned to the
+Novgorodians and begged with tears for pardon and assistance. They
+forgave and aided him, and by their help made him sovereign of the
+empire.</p>
+
+<p>How far this is true it is impossible to say, but the code of Yaroslaf
+was promulgated at that date, and the rights given to Novgorod showed
+that its people held the reins of power. It confirmed the city in the
+ancient liberties of which we have already spoken, giving it a freedom
+which no other city of its time surpassed. And it laid down a series of
+laws for the people at large which seem very curious in this enlightened
+age. It must suffice to give the leading features of this ancient code.</p>
+
+<p>It began by sustaining the right of private vengeance. The law was for
+the weak alone, the strong being left to avenge their own wrongs. The
+punishment of crime was provided for by judicial combats, which the law
+did not even regulate. Every strong man was a law unto himself.</p>
+
+<p>Where no avengers of crime appeared, murder was to be settled by fines.
+For the murder of a boyar eighty grivnas were to be paid, and forty for
+the murder of a free Russian, but only half as much if the victim was a
+woman. Here we have a standard of value for the women of that age.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing was paid into the treasury for the murder of a slave, but his
+master had to be paid his value, unless he had been slain for insulting
+a freeman. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> value was reckoned according to his occupation, and
+ranged from twelve to five grivnas.</p>
+
+<p>If it be asked what was the value of a grivna, it may be said that at
+that time there was little coined money, perhaps none at all, in Russia.
+Gold and silver were circulated by weight, and the common currency was
+composed of pieces of skin, called <i>kuni</i>. A grivna was a certain number
+of kunis equal in value to half a pound of silver, but the kuni often
+varied in value.</p>
+
+<p>All prisoners of war and all persons bought from foreigners were
+condemned to perpetual slavery. Others became slaves for limited
+periods,&mdash;freemen who married slaves, insolvent debtors, servants out of
+employment, and various other classes. As the legal interest of money
+was forty per cent., the enslavement of debtors must have been very
+common, and Russia was even then largely a land of slaves.</p>
+
+<p>The loss of a limb was fined almost as severely as that of a life. To
+pluck out part of the beard cost four times as much as to cut off a
+finger, and insults in general were fined four times as heavily as
+wounds. Horse-stealing was punished by slavery. In discovering the
+guilty the ordeals of red-hot iron and boiling water were in use, as in
+the countries of the West.</p>
+
+<p>There were three classes in the nation,&mdash;slaves, freemen, and boyars, or
+nobles, the last being probably the descendants of Rurik's warriors. The
+prince was the heir of all citizens who died without male children,
+except of boyars and the officers of his guard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>These laws, which were little more primitive than those of Western
+Europe at the same period, seem never to have imposed corporal
+punishment for crime. Injury was made good by cash, except in the case
+of the combat. The fines went to the lord or prince, and were one of his
+means of support, the other being tribute from his estates. No provision
+for taxation was made. The mark of dependence on the prince was military
+service, the lord, as in the feudal West, being obliged to provide his
+own arms, provisions, and mounted followers.</p>
+
+<p>Judges there were, who travelled on circuits, and who impanelled twelve
+respectable jurors, sworn to give just verdicts. There are several laws
+extending protection to property, fixed and movable, which seem
+specially framed for the merchants of Novgorod.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the leading features of the code of Yaroslaf. The franchises
+granted the Novgorodians, which for four centuries gave them the right
+to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," form part of it. Crude
+as are many of its provisions, it forms a vital starting-point, that in
+which Russia first came under definite in place of indefinite law. And
+the bringing about of this important change is the glory of Yaroslaf the
+Wise.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE YOKE OF THE TARTARS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> Asia, the greatest continent of the earth, lies its most extensive
+plain, the vast plateau of Mongolia, whose true boundaries are the
+mountains of Siberia and the Himalayan highlands, the Pacific Ocean and
+the hills of Eastern Europe, and of which the great plain of Russia is
+but an outlying section. This mighty plateau, largely a desert, is the
+home of the nomad shepherd and warrior, the nesting-place of the
+emigrant invader. From these broad levels in the past horde after horde
+of savage horsemen rode over Europe and Asia,&mdash;the frightful Huns, the
+devastating Turks, the desolating Mongols. It is with the last that we
+are here concerned, for Russia fell beneath their arms, and was held for
+two centuries as a captive realm.</p>
+
+<p>The nomads are born warriors. They live on horseback; the care of their
+great herds teaches them military discipline; they are always in motion,
+have no cities to defend, no homes to abandon, no crops to harvest.
+Their home is a camp; when they move it moves with them; their food is
+on the hoof and accompanies them on the march; they can go hungry for a
+week and then eat like cormorants; their tools are weapons, always in
+hand, always ready to use; a dozen times they have burst like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> a
+devouring torrent from their desert and overwhelmed the South and West.</p>
+
+<p>While the Turks were still engaged in their work of conquest, the
+Mongols arose, and under the formidable Genghis Khan swept over Southern
+Asia like a tornado, leaving death and desolation in their track. The
+conqueror died in 1227,&mdash;for death is a foe that vanquishes even the
+greatest of warriors,&mdash;and was succeeded by his son Octoi, as Great Khan
+of the Mongols and Tartars. In 1235, Batou, nephew of the khan, was sent
+with an army of half a million men to the conquest of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>This flood of barbarians fell upon Russia at an unfortunate time, one of
+anarchy and civil war, when the whole nation was rent and torn and there
+were almost as many sovereigns as there were cities. The system of
+giving a separate dominion to every son of a grand prince had ruined
+Russia. These small potentates were constantly at war, confusion reigned
+supreme, Kief was taken and degraded and a new capital, Vladimir,
+established, and Moscow, which was to become the fourth capital of
+Russia, was founded. Such was the state of affairs when Batou, with his
+vast horde of savage horsemen, fell on the distracted realm.</p>
+
+<p>Defence was almost hopeless. Russia had no government, no army, no
+imperial organization. Each city stood for itself, with great widths of
+open country around. Over these broad spaces the invaders swept like an
+avalanche, finding cultivated fields before them, leaving a desert
+behind. They swam the Don, the Volga, and the other great rivers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> on
+their horses, or crossed them on the ice. Leathern boats brought over
+their wagons and artillery. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea,
+poured into the kingdoms of the West, and would have overrun all Europe
+but for the vigorous resistance of the knighthood of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>The cities of Russia made an obstinate defence, but one after another
+they fell. Some saved themselves by surrender. Most of them were taken
+by assault and destroyed. City after city was reduced to ashes, none of
+the inhabitants being left to deplore their fall. The nomads had no use
+for cities. Walls were their enemies: pasturage was all they cared for.
+The conversion of a country into a desert was to them a gain rather than
+a loss, for grass will grow in the desert, and grass to feed their
+horses and herds was what they most desired.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the warriors of Mongolia were concerned, their conquests left
+them no better off. They still had to tend and feed their herds, and
+they could have done that as well in their native land. But the leaders
+had the lust of dominion, their followers the blood-fury, and inspired
+by these feelings they ravaged the world.</p>
+
+<p>One thing alone saved Russia from being peopled by Tartars,&mdash;its
+climate. This was not to their liking, and they preferred to dwell in
+lands better suited to their tastes and habits. The great Tartar empire
+of Kaptchak, or the Golden Horde, was founded on the eastern frontier;
+other khanates were founded in the south; but the Russian princes were
+left to rule in the remainder of the land, under tribute to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the khans,
+to whom they were forced to do homage. In truth, these Tartar chiefs
+made themselves lords paramount of the Russian realm, and no prince,
+great or small, could assume the government of his state until he had
+journeyed to Central Mongolia to beg permission to rule from the khan of
+the Great Horde.</p>
+
+<p>The subjection of the princes was that of slaves. A century afterward
+they were obliged to spread a carpet of sable fur under the hoofs of the
+steed of the khan's envoy, to prostrate themselves at his feet and learn
+his mission on their knees, and not only to present a cup of koumiss to
+the barbarian, but even to lick from the neck of his horse the drops of
+the beverage which he might let fall in drinking. More shameful
+subjection it would be difficult to describe.</p>
+
+<p>Several princes who proved insubordinate were summoned to the camp of
+the Horde and there tried and executed. Rivals sought the khan, to buy
+power by presents. During their journeys, which occupied a year or more,
+the Tartar bashaks ruled their dominions. Tartar armies aided the
+princes in their civil wars, and helped these ambitious lords to keep
+their country in a state of subjection.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately for Russia, the great empire of the Mongols gradually fell
+to pieces of its own weight. The Kaptchak, or Golden Horde, broke loose
+from the Great Horde, and Russia had a smaller power to deal with. The
+Golden Horde itself broke into two parts. And among the many princes of
+Russia a grand prince was still acknowledged, with right by title to
+dominion over the entire realm.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p><p>One of these grand princes, Alexander by name, son of the grand prince
+of Vladimir, proved a great warrior and statesman and gained the power
+as well as the title. Prince of Novgorod by inheritance, he defeated all
+his enemies, drove the Germans from Russia, and recovered the Neva from
+the Swedes, which feat of arms gained him the title of Alexander Nevsky.
+The Tartars were too powerful to be attacked, so he managed to gain
+their good will. The khan became his friend, and when trouble arose with
+Kief and Vladimir their princes were dethroned and these principalities
+given to the shrewd grand prince.</p>
+
+<p>Russia seemed to be rehabilitated. Alexander was lord of its three
+capitals, Novgorod, Kief, and Vladimir, and grand prince of the realm.
+But the Russians were not content to submit either to his authority or
+to the yoke of the Tartars. His whole life was spent in battle with
+them, or in journeys to the tent of the khan to beg forgiveness for
+their insults.</p>
+
+<p>The climax came when the Tartar collectors of tribute were massacred in
+some cities and ignominiously driven out of others. When these acts
+became known at the Horde the angry khan sent orders for the grand
+prince and all other Russian princes to appear before him and to bring
+all their troops. He said that he was about to make a campaign, and
+needed the aid of the Russians.</p>
+
+<p>This story Alexander did not believe. He plainly perceived that the wily
+Tartar wished to deprive Russia of all its armed men, that he might the
+more easily reduce it again to subjection. Rather than see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> his country
+ruined, the patriotic prince determined to disobey, and to offer himself
+as a victim by seeking alone the camp of Usbek, the great khan, a
+mission of infinite danger.</p>
+
+<p>He hoped that his submission might save Russia from ruin, though he knew
+that death lay on his path. He found Usbek bitterly bent on war, and for
+a whole year was kept in the camp of the Horde, seeking to appease the
+wrath of the barbarian. In the end he succeeded, the khan promising to
+forgive the Russians and desist from the intended war, and in the year
+1262 Alexander started for home again.</p>
+
+<p>He had seemingly escaped, but not in reality. He had not journeyed far
+before he suddenly died. To all appearance, poison had been mingled with
+his food before he left the camp of the khan. Alexander had become too
+great and powerful at home for the designs of the conquerors. He died
+the victim of his love of country. His people have recognized his virtue
+by making him a saint. He had not labored in vain. In his hands the
+grand princeship had been restored, Vladimir had become supreme, and a
+centre had been established around which the Russians might rally. But
+for a century and more still they were to remain subject to the Tartar
+yoke.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE VICTORY OF THE DON.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> history of Russia during the century after the Mongol conquest is
+one of shame and anarchy. The shame was that of slavish submission to
+the Tartar khan. Each prince, in succession, fell on his knees before
+this high dignitary of the barbarians and begged or bought his throne.
+The anarchy was that of the Russian princes, on which the khan looked
+with winking eyes, thinking that the more they weakened themselves the
+more they would strengthen him. The rulers of Moscow, Tver, Vladimir,
+and Novgorod fought almost incessantly for supremacy, crushing their
+people beneath the feet of their ambition, now one, now another, gaining
+the upper hand.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image3.jpg" width="600" height="476" alt="GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW." title="" />
+<span class="caption">GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the end the princes of Moscow became supreme. They grew rich, and
+were able to keep up a regular army, that chief tool of despotism. The
+crown lands alone gave them dominion over three hundred thousand
+subjects. The time was coming in which they would be the absolute rulers
+of all Russia. But before this could be accomplished the power of the
+khans must be broken, and the first step towards this was taken by the
+great Dmitri Donskoi, who became grand prince of Moscow in 1362.</p>
+
+<p>Dmitri came to the throne at a fortunate epoch. The Golden Horde was
+breaking to pieces. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> were several khans, at war with one another,
+and discord ruled among the overlords of Russia. Still greater discord
+reigned in Russia itself. For eighteen years Dmitri was kept busy in
+wars with the princes of Tver, Kief, and Lithuania. Terrible was the war
+with Tver. Four times he overcame Michael, its prince. Four times did
+Michael, aided by the prince of Lithuania, gain the victory. During this
+obstinate conflict Moscow was twice besieged. Only its stone walls,
+lately built, saved it from capture and ruin. At length Olguerd, the
+fiery prince of Lithuania, died, and Tver yielded. Moscow became
+paramount among the Russian principalities.</p>
+
+<p>And now Dmitri, with all Russia as his realm, dared to defy the terrible
+Tartars. For more than a century no Russian prince had ventured to
+appear before the khan of the Golden Horde except on his knees. Dmitri
+had thus humbled himself only three years before. Now, inflated with his
+new power, he refused to pay tribute to the khan, and went so far as to
+put to death the Tartar envoy, who insolently demanded the accustomed
+payment.</p>
+
+<p>Dmitri had burned his bridges behind him. He had flung down the gage of
+war to the Tartars, and would soon feel their hand in all its dreaded
+strength. The khan, on hearing of the murder of his ambassador, burst
+into a terrible rage. The civil wars which divided the Golden Horde had
+for the time ceased, and Mamai, the khan, gathered all the power of the
+Horde and marched on defiant Moscow, vowing to sweep that rebel city
+from the face of the earth.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>The Russians did not wait his coming. All dissensions ceased in the
+face of the impending peril, all the princes sent aid, and Dmitri
+marched to the Don at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men.
+Here he found the redoubtable Mamai with three times that number of the
+fierce Tartar horsemen in his train.</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder lies the foe," said Dmitri to his princely associates. "Here
+runs the Don. Shall we await him here, or cross and meet him with the
+river at our backs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us cross," was the unanimous verdict. "Let us be first in the
+assault."</p>
+
+<p>At once the order was given, and the battalions marched on board the
+boats and were ferried across the stream, at a short distance from the
+opposite bank of which the enemy lay. No sooner had they landed than
+Dmitri ordered all the boats to be cast adrift. It was to be victory or
+death; no hope of escape by flight was left; but well he knew that the
+men would fight with double valor under such desperate straits.</p>
+
+<p>The battle began. On the serried Russian ranks the Tartars poured in
+that impetuous assault which had so often carried their hosts to
+victory. The Russians defended themselves with fiery valor, assault
+after assault was repulsed, and so fiercely was the field contested that
+multitudes of the fallen were trampled to death beneath the horses'
+feet. At length, however, numbers began to tell. The Russians grew weary
+from the closeness of the conflict. The vast host of the Tartars enabled
+them to replace<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> with fresh troops all that were worn in the fight.
+Victory seemed about to perch upon their banners.</p>
+
+<p>Dismay crept into the Russian ranks. They would have broken in flight,
+but no avenue of escape was left. The river ran behind them, unruffled
+by a boat. Flight meant death by drowning; fight meant death by the
+sword. Of the two the latter seemed best, for the Russians firmly
+believed that death at the hands of the infidels meant an immediate
+transport to the heavenly mansions of bliss.</p>
+
+<p>At this critical moment, when the host of Dmitri was wavering between
+panic and courage, the men ready to drop their swords through sheer
+fatigue, an unlooked-for diversion inspired their shrinking souls. The
+grand prince had stationed a detachment of his army as a reserve, and
+these, as yet, had taken no part in the battle. Now, fresh and furious,
+they were brought up, and fell vigorously upon the rear of the Tartars,
+who, filled with sudden terror, thought that a new army had come to the
+aid of the old. A moment later they broke and fled, pursued by their
+triumphant foes, and falling fast as they hurried in panic fear from the
+encrimsoned field.</p>
+
+<p>Something like amazement filled the souls of the Russians as they saw
+their dreaded enemies in flight. Such a consummation they had scarcely
+dared hope for, accustomed as they had been for a century to crouch
+before this dreadful foe. They had bought their victory dearly. Their
+dead strewed the ground by thousands. Yet to be victorious over the
+Tartar host seemed to them an ample recompense for an even greater loss
+than that sustained. Eight days<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> were occupied by the survivors in
+burying the slain. As for the Tartar dead, they were left to fester on
+the field. Such was the great victory of the Don, from which Dmitri
+gained his honorable surname of Donskoi. He died nine years afterwards
+(1389), having won the high honor of being the first to vanquish the
+terrible horsemen of the Steppes, firmly founded the authority of the
+grand princes, and made Moscow the paramount power in Russia.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>IVAN, THE FIRST OF THE CZARS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> victory of the Don did not free Russia from the Tartar yoke. Two
+years afterwards the principality of Moscow was overrun and ravaged by a
+lieutenant of the mighty Tamerlane, the all-conquering successor of
+Genghis Khan. Several times Moscow was taken and burned. Full seventy
+years later, at the court of the Golden Horde, two Russian princes might
+have been seen disputing before the great khan the possession of the
+grand principality and tremblingly awaiting his decision. Nevertheless,
+the battle of the Don had sounded the knell of the Tartar power. Anarchy
+continued to prevail in the Golden Horde. The power of the grand princes
+of Moscow steadily grew. The khans themselves played into the hands of
+their foes. Russia was slowly but surely casting off her fetters, and
+deliverance was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Ivan III., great-grandson of Dmitri Donskoi, ascended the throne in
+1462, nearly two centuries and a half after the Tartar invasion. During
+all that period Russia had been the vassal of the khans. Only now was
+its freedom to come. It was by craft, more than by war, that Ivan won.
+In the field he was a dastard, but in subtlety and perfidy he surpassed
+all other men of his time, and his insidious but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> persistent policy
+ended by making him the autocrat of all the Russias.</p>
+
+<p>He found powerful enemies outside his dominions,&mdash;the Tartars, the
+Lithuanians, and the Poles. He succeeded in defeating them all. He had
+powerful rivals within the domain of Russia. These also he overcame. He
+made Moscow all-powerful, imitated the tyranny of the Tartars, and
+founded the autocratic rule of the czars which has ever since prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>The story of the fall of the Golden Horde may be briefly told. It was
+the work of the Russian army, but not of the Russian prince. In 1469,
+after collecting a large army, Ivan halted and began negotiating. But
+the army was not to be restrained. Disregarding the orders of their
+general, they chose another leader, and assailed and captured Kasan, the
+chief Tartar city. As for the army of the Golden Horde, it was twice
+defeated by the Russian force. In 1480 a third invasion of the Tartars
+took place, which resulted in the annihilation of their force.</p>
+
+<p>The tale, as handed down to us, is a curious one. The army, full of
+martial ardor, had advanced as far as the Oka to meet the Tartars; but
+on the approach of the enemy Ivan, stricken with terror, deserted his
+troops and took refuge in far-off Moscow. He even recalled his son, but
+the brave boy refused to obey, saying that "he would rather die at his
+post than follow the example of his father."</p>
+
+<p>The murmurs of the people, the supplication of the priests, the
+indignation of the boyars, forced him to return to the army, but he
+returned only to cover<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> it with shame and himself with disgrace. For
+when the chill of the coming winter suddenly froze the river between the
+two forces, offering the foe a firm pathway to battle, Ivan, in
+consternation, ordered a retreat, which his haste converted into a
+disorderly flight. Yet the army was two hundred thousand strong and had
+not struck a blow.</p>
+
+<p>Fortune and his allies saved the dastard monarch. For at this perilous
+interval the khan of the Crimea, an ally of Russia, attacked the capital
+of the Golden Horde and forced a hasty recall of its army; and during
+its disorderly homeward march a host of Cossacks fell upon it with such
+fury that it was totally destroyed. Russia, threatened with a new
+subjection to the Tartars by the cowardice of its monarch, was finally
+freed from these dreaded foes through the aid of her allies.</p>
+
+<p>But the fruits of this harvest, sown by others, were reaped by the czar.
+His people, who had been disgusted with his cowardice, now gave him
+credit for the deepest craft and wisdom. All this had been prepared by
+him, they said. His flight was a ruse, his pusillanimity was prudence;
+he had made the Tartars their own destroyers, without risking the fate
+of Russia in a battle; and what had just been condemned as dastard
+baseness was now praised as undiluted wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>Ivan would never have gained the title of Great from his deeds in war.
+He won it, and with some justice, from his deeds in peace. He was great
+in diplomacy, great in duplicity, great in that persistent pursuit of a
+single object through which men rise to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> power and fame. This object, in
+his case, was autocracy. It was his purpose to crush out the last shreds
+of freedom from Russia, establish an empire on the pernicious pattern of
+a Tartar khanate, which had so long been held up as an example before
+Russian eyes, and make the Prince of Moscow as absolute as the Emperor
+of China. He succeeded. During his reign freedom fled from Russia. It
+has never since returned.</p>
+
+<p>The story of how this great aim was accomplished is too long to be told
+here, and the most important part of it must be left for our next tale.
+It will suffice, at this point, to say that by astute policy and good
+fortune Ivan added to his dominions nineteen thousand square miles of
+territory and four millions of subjects, made himself supreme autocrat
+and his voice the sole arbiter of fate, reduced the boyars and
+subordinate princes to dependence on his throne, established a new and
+improved system of administration in all the details of government, and
+by his marriage with Sophia, the last princess of the Greek imperial
+family,&mdash;driven by the Turks from Constantinople to Rome,&mdash;gained for
+his standard the two-headed eagle, the symbol of autocracy, and for
+himself the supreme title of czar.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE FALL OF NOVGOROD THE GREAT.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Czar of Russia is the one political deity in Europe, the sole
+absolute autocrat. More than a hundred millions of people have delivered
+themselves over, fettered hand and foot, almost body and soul, to the
+ownership of one man, without a voice in their own government, without
+daring to speak, hardly daring to think, otherwise than he approves.
+Thousands of them, millions of them, perhaps, are saying to-day, in the
+words of Hamlet, "It is not and it cannot come to good; but break my
+heart, for I must hold my tongue."</p>
+
+<p>Who is this man, this god of a nation, that he should loom so high? Is
+he a marvel of wisdom, virtue, and nobility, made by nature to wear the
+purple, fashioned of porcelain clay, greater and better than all the
+host to whom his word is the voice of fate? By no means; thousands of
+his subjects tower far above him in virtue and ability, but,
+puppet-like, the noblest and best of them must dance as he pulls the
+strings, and hardly a man in Russia dares to say that his soul is his
+own if the czar says otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Such a state of affairs is an anachronism in the nineteenth century, a
+hideous relic of the barbarism and anarchy of medi&aelig;val times. In
+America, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> every man is a czar, so far as the disposal of himself
+is concerned, the enslavement of the Russians seems a frightful
+disregard of the rights of man, the nation a giant Gulliver bound down
+to the earth by chains of creed and custom, of bureaucracy and perverted
+public opinion. Like Gulliver, it was bound when asleep, and it must
+continue fettered while its intellect remains torpid. Some day it will
+awake, stretch its mighty limbs, burst its feeble bonds, and hurl in
+disarray to the earth the whole host of liliputian officials and
+dignitaries who are strutting in the pride of ownership on its great
+body, the czar tumbling first from his great estate.</p>
+
+<p>This does not seem a proper beginning to a story from Russian history,
+but, to quote from Shakespeare again, "Thereby hangs a tale." The
+history of Russia has, in fact, been a strange one; it began as a
+republic, it has ended as a despotism; and we cannot go on with our work
+without attempting to show how this came about.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Mongol invasion that enslaved Russia. Helped by the khans,
+Moscow gradually rose to supremacy over all the other principalities,
+trod them one by one under her feet, gained power by the aid of Tartar
+swords and spears or through sheer dread of the Tartar name, and when
+the Golden Horde was at length overthrown the Grand Prince took the
+place of the Great Khan and ruled with the same absolute sway. It was
+the absolutism of Asia imported into Europe. Step by step the princes of
+Moscow had copied the system of the khan. This work was finished by Ivan
+the Great, at once the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> deliverer and the enslaver of Russia, who freed
+that country from the yoke of the khan, but laid upon it a heavier
+burden of servility and shame.</p>
+
+<p>Under the khan there had been insurrection. Under the czar there was
+subjection. The latter state was worse than the former. The subjection
+continues still, but the spirit of insurrection is again rising. The
+time is coming in which the rule of that successor of the Tartar khan,
+miscalled the czar, will end, and the people take into their own hands
+the control of their bodies and souls.</p>
+
+<p>There were republics in Russia even in Ivan's day, free cities which,
+though governed by princes, maintained the republican institutions of
+the past. Chief among these was Novgorod, that Novgorod the Great which
+invited Rurik into Russia and under him became the germ of the vast
+Russian empire. A free city then, a free city it continued. Rurik and
+his descendants ruled by sufferance. Yaroslaf confirmed the free
+institutions which Rurik had respected. For centuries this great
+commercial city continued prosperous and free, becoming in time a member
+of the powerful Hanseatic League. Only for the invasion of the Mongols,
+Novgorod instead of Moscow might have become the prototype of modern
+Russia, and a republic instead of a despotism have been established in
+that mighty land. The sword of the Tartar cast into the scales
+overweighted the balance. It gave Moscow the supremacy, and liberty
+fell.</p>
+
+<p>Ivan the Great, in his determined effort to subject all Russia to his
+autocratic sway, saw before him three republican communities, the free
+cities of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Novgorod, Viatka, and Pskof, and took steps to sweep these
+last remnants of ancient freedom from his path. Novgorod, as much the
+most important of these, especially demands our attention. With its fall
+Russian liberty fell to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>At that time Novgorod was one of the richest and most powerful cities of
+the earth. It was an ally rather than a subject of Moscow, and all the
+north of Russia was under its sway and contributed to its wealth. But
+luxury had sapped its strength, and it held its liberties more by
+purchase than by courage. Some of these liberties had already been lost,
+seized by the grand prince. The proud burghers chafed under this
+invasion of their time-honored privileges, and in 1471, inspired by the
+seeming timidity of Ivan, they determined to regain them.</p>
+
+<p>It was a woman that brought about the revolt. Marfa, a rich and
+influential widow of the city, had fallen in love with a Lithuanian,
+and, inspired at once by the passions of love and ambition, sought to
+attach her country to that of her lover. She opened her palace to the
+citizens and lavished on them her treasures, seeking to inspire them
+with her own views. Her efforts were successful: the officers of the
+grand prince were driven out, and his domains seized; and when he
+threatened reprisal they broke into open revolt, and bound themselves by
+treaty to Casimir, prince of Lithuania.</p>
+
+<p>But events were to prove that the turbulent citizens were no match for
+the crafty Ivan, who moved slowly but ever steadily to his goal, and
+made secure each footstep before taking a step in advance. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+insidious policy roused three separate hostilities against Novgorod. The
+pride of the nobles was stirred up against its democracy; the greed of
+the princes made them eager to seize its wealth; the fanatical people
+were taught that this great city was an apostate to the faith.</p>
+
+<p>These hostile forces proved too much for the city against which they
+were directed. Novgorod was taken and plundered, though Ivan did not yet
+deprive it of its liberties. He had powerful princes to deal with, and
+did not dare to seize so rich a prey without letting them share the
+spoil. But he ruined the city by devastation and plunder, deprived it of
+its tributaries, the city and territory of Perm, and turned from
+Novgorod to Moscow the rich commerce of this section. Taking advantage
+of some doubtful words in the treaty of submission, he held himself to
+be legislator and supreme judge of the captive city. Such was the first
+result of the advice of an ambitious woman.</p>
+
+<p>The next step of the autocrat added to his influence. Novgorod being
+threatened with an attack from Livonia, he sent thither troops and
+envoys to fight and negotiate in his name, thus taking from the city,
+whose resources he had already drained, its old right of making peace
+and war.</p>
+
+<p>The ill feeling between the rich and the poor of Novgorod was fomented
+by his agents; all complaints were required to be made to him; he still
+further impoverished the rich by the presents and magnificent receptions
+which his presence among them demanded, and dazzled the eyes of the
+people by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> Oriental state and splendor which had been adopted by the
+court of Moscow, and which he displayed in their midst.</p>
+
+<p>The nobles who had formerly been his enemies now became his victims. He
+had induced the people to denounce them, and at once seized them and
+sent them in chains to Moscow. The people, blinded by this seeming
+attention to their complaints, remained heedless of the violation of the
+ancient law of their republic, "that none of its citizens should ever be
+tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory."</p>
+
+<p>Thus tyranny made its slow way. The citizens, once governed and judged
+by their own peers, now made their appeals to the grand prince and were
+summoned to appear before his tribunal. "Never since Rurik," say the
+annals, "had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of Kief
+and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come and submit to them as their
+judges. Ivan alone could reduce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation."</p>
+
+<p>This work was done with the deliberation of a settled policy. Ivan did
+not molest Marfa, who had instigated the revolt; his sentences were just
+and equitable; men were blinded by his seeming moderation; and for full
+seven years he pursued his insidious way, gradually weaning the people
+from their ancient customs, and taking advantage of every imprudence and
+thoughtless concession on their part to ground on it a claim to
+increased authority.</p>
+
+<p>It was the glove of silk he had thus far extended to them. Within it lay
+concealed the hand of iron.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> The grasp of the iron hand was made when,
+during an audience, the envoy of the republic, through treason or
+thoughtlessness, addressed him by the name of sovereign (<i>Gosudar</i>,
+"liege lord," instead of <i>Gospodin</i>, "master," the usual title).</p>
+
+<p>Ivan, taking advantage of this, at once claimed all the absolute rights
+which custom had attached to that title. He demanded that the republic
+should take an oath to him as its judge and legislator, receive his
+boyars as their rulers, and yield to them the ancient palace of
+Yaroslaf, the sacred temple of their liberties, in which for more than
+five centuries their assemblies had been held.</p>
+
+<p>This demand roused the Novgorodians to their danger. They saw how
+blindly they had yielded to tyranny. A transport of indignation inspired
+them. For the last time the great bell of liberty sent forth its peal of
+alarm. Gathering tumultuously at the palace from which they were
+threatened with expulsion, they vigorously resolved,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ivan is in fact our lord, but he shall never be our sovereign; the
+tribunal of his deputies may sit at Goroditch, but never at Novgorod:
+Novgorod is, and always shall be, its own judge."</p>
+
+<p>In their rage they murdered several of the nobles whom they suspected of
+being friends of the tyrant. The envoy who had uttered the imprudent
+word was torn to pieces by their furious hands. They ended by again
+invoking the aid of Lithuania.</p>
+
+<p>On hearing of this outbreak the despot feigned surprise. Groans broke
+from his lips, as if he felt that he had been basely used. His
+complaints were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> loud, and the calling in of a foreign power was brought
+against Novgorod as a frightful aggravation of its crime. Under cover of
+these groans and complaints an army was gathered to which all the
+provinces of the empire were forced to send contingents.</p>
+
+<p>These warlike preparations alarmed the citizens. All Russia seemed
+arrayed against them, and they tremblingly asked for conditions of peace
+in accordance with their ancient honor. "I will reign at Novgorod as I
+do at Moscow," replied the imperious despot. "I must have domains on
+your territory. You must give up your Posadnick, and the bell which
+summons you to the national council." Yet this threat of enslavement was
+craftily coupled with a promise to respect their liberty.</p>
+
+<p>This declaration, the most terrible that free citizens could have heard,
+threw them into a state of violent agitation. Now in defiant fury they
+seized their arms, now in helpless despondency let them fall. For a
+whole month their crafty adversary permitted them to exhibit their rage,
+not caring to use the great army with which he had encircled the city
+when assured that the terror of his presence would soon bring him
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>They yielded: they could do nothing but yield. No blood was shed. Ivan
+had gained his end, and was not given to useless cruelty. Marfa and
+seven of the principal citizens were sent prisoners to Moscow and their
+property was confiscated. No others were molested. But on the 15th of
+January, 1478, the national assemblies ceased, and the citizens took the
+oath of subjection. The great republic, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> had existed from
+prehistoric times, was at an end, and despotism ruled supreme.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th the boyars of Novgorod entered the service of Ivan, and the
+possessions of the clergy were added to the domain of the prince, giving
+him as vassals three hundred thousand boyar-followers, on whom he
+depended to hold Novgorod in a state of submission. A great part of the
+territories belonging to the city became the victor's prize, and it is
+said that, as a share of his spoil, he sent to Moscow three hundred
+cart-loads of gold, silver, and precious stones, besides vast quantities
+of furs, cloths, and other goods of value.</p>
+
+<p>Pskov, another of the Russian republics, had been already subdued. In
+1479, Viatka, a colony of Novgorod, was reduced to like slavery. The end
+had come. Republicanism in Russia was extinguished, and gradually the
+republican population was removed to the soil of Moscow and replaced by
+Muscovites, born to the yoke.</p>
+
+<p>The liberties of Novgorod were gone. It had been robbed of its wealth.
+Its commerce remained, which in time would have restored its prosperity.
+But this too Ivan destroyed, not intentionally, but effectually. A burst
+of despotic anger completed the work of ruin. The tyrant, having been
+insulted by a Hanseatic city, ordered all the merchants of the Hansa
+then in Novgorod to be put in chains and their property confiscated. As
+a result, that confidence under which alone commerce can flourish
+vanished, the North sought new channels for its trade, and Novgorod the
+Great, once peopled by four <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>hundred thousand souls, declined until only
+an insignificant borough marks the spot where once it stood.</p>
+
+<p>It is an interesting fact that this final blow to Russian republicanism
+was dealt in 1492, the very year in which Columbus discovered a new
+world beyond the seas, within which the greatest republic the world has
+ever known was destined to arise.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>IVAN THE TERRIBLE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> seeking examples of the excesses to which absolute power may lead, we
+usually name the wicked emperors of Rome, among whom Nero stands most
+notorious as a monster of cruelty. Modern history has but one Nero in
+its long lines of kings and emperors, and him we find in Ivan IV. of
+Russia, surnamed the Terrible.</p>
+
+<p>This cruel czar succeeded to the throne when but three years of age. In
+his early years he lived in a state of terror, being insulted and
+despised by the powerful nobles who controlled the power of the throne.
+At fourteen years of age his enemies were driven out and his kinsmen
+came into power. They, caring only for blood and plunder, prompted the
+boy to cruelty, teaching him to rob, to torture, to massacre. They
+applauded him when he amused himself by tormenting animals; and when,
+riding furiously through the streets of Moscow, he dashed all before him
+to the ground and trampled women and children under his horses' feet,
+they praised him for spirit and energy.</p>
+
+<p>This was an education fitted to make a Nero. But, happily for Russia,
+for thirteen years the tiger was chained. Ivan was seventeen years of
+age when a frightful conflagration which broke out in Moscow gave rise
+to a revolt against the Glinski, his wicked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> kinsmen. They were torn to
+pieces by the furious multitude, while terror rent his youthful soul.
+Amid the horror of flames, cries of vengeance, and groans of the dying,
+a monk appeared before the trembling boy, and with menacing looks and
+upraised hand bade him shrink from the wrath of Heaven, which his
+cruelty had aroused.</p>
+
+<p>Certain appearances which appeared supernatural aided the effect of
+these words, the nature of Ivan seemed changed as by a miracle, dread of
+Heaven's vengeance controlled his nature, and he yielded himself to the
+influence of the wise and good. Pious priests and prudent boyars became
+his advisers, Anastasia, his young and virtuous bride, gained an
+influence over him, and Russia enjoyed justice and felicity.</p>
+
+<p>During the succeeding thirteen years the country was ably and wisely
+governed, order was everywhere established, the army was strengthened,
+fortresses were built, enemies were defeated, the morals of the clergy
+were improved, a new code of laws was formed, arts were introduced from
+Europe, a printing-office was opened, the city of Archangel was built,
+and the north of the empire was thrown open to commerce.</p>
+
+<p>All this was the work of Adashef, Ivan's wise prime minister, aided by
+the influence of the noble-hearted Anastasia. In 1560, at the end of
+this period of mild and able administration, a sudden change took place
+and the tiger was set free. Anastasia died. A disease seized Ivan which
+seemed to affect his brain. The remainder of his life was marked by
+paroxysms of frightful barbarity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>A new terror seized him, that of a vast conspiracy of the nobles
+against his power, and for safety he retired to Alexandrovsky, a
+fortress in the midst of a gloomy forest. Here he assumed the monkish
+dress with three hundred of his minions, abandoning to the boyars the
+government of the empire, but keeping the military power in his own
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>On all sides Russia now suffered from its enemies. Moscow, with several
+hundred thousand Muscovites, was burned by the Tartars in 1571. Disaster
+followed disaster, which Ivan was too cowardly and weak to avert.
+Trusting to incompetent generals abroad, he surrounded himself at home
+with a guard of six thousand chosen men, who were hired to play the part
+of spies and assassins. They carried as emblems of office a dog's head
+and a broom, the first to indicate that they worried the enemies of the
+czar, the second that they swept them from the face of the earth. They
+were chosen from the lowest class of the people, and to them was given
+the property of their victims, that they might murder without mercy.</p>
+
+<p>The excesses of Ivan are almost too horrible to tell. He began by
+putting to death several great boyars of the family of Rurik, while
+their wives and children were driven naked into the forests, where they
+died under the scourge. Novgorod had been ruined by his grandfather. He
+marched against it, in a freak of madness, gathered a throng of the
+helpless people within a great enclosure, and butchered them with his
+own hand. When worn out with these labors of death, he turned on them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+his guard, his slaves, and his dogs, while for a month afterwards
+hundreds of them were flung daily into the waters of the river, through
+the broken ice. What little vitality Ivan III. had left in the
+republican city was stamped out under the feet of this insensate brute.</p>
+
+<p>Tver and Pskov, two others of the free cities of the empire, suffered
+from his frightful presence. Then returning to Moscow, he filled the
+public square with red-hot brasiers, great brass caldrons, and eighty
+gibbets, and here five hundred of the leading nobles were slain by his
+orders, after being subjected to terrible tortures.</p>
+
+<p>Women were treated as barbarously as men. Ivan, with a cruelty never
+before matched, ordered many of them to be hanged at their own doors,
+and forced the husbands to go in and out under the swinging and
+festering corpses of those they had loved and cherished. In other cases
+husbands or children were fastened, dead, in their seats at table, and
+the family forced to sit at meals, for days, opposite these terrifying
+objects.</p>
+
+<p>Seeking daily for new conceits of cruelty, he forced one lord to kill
+his father and another his brother, while it was his delight to let
+loose his dogs and bears upon the people in the public square, the
+animals being left to devour the mutilated bodies of those they killed.
+Eight hundred women were drowned in one frightful mass, and their
+relatives were forced under torture to point out where their wealth lay
+hidden.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that sixty thousand people were slain by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> Ivan's orders in
+Novgorod alone; how many perished in the whole realm history does not
+relate. His only warlike campaign was against the Livonians. These he
+failed to conquer, but held their resistance as a rebellion, and ordered
+his prisoners to be thrown into boiling caldrons, spitted on lances, or
+roasted at fires which he stirred up with his own hands.</p>
+
+<p>This monster of iniquity married in all seven wives. He sought for an
+eighth from the court of Queen Elizabeth of England, and the daughter of
+the Earl of Huntington was offered him as a victim,&mdash;a willing one, it
+seems, influenced by the glamour which power exerts over the mind; but
+before the match was concluded the intended bride took fright, and
+begged to be spared the terrible honor of wedding the Russian czar.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all the excesses of Ivan did not turn the people against him. He
+assumed the manner of one inspired, claiming divine powers, and all the
+injuries and degradation which he inflicted upon the people were
+accepted not only with resignation but with adoration. The Russians of
+that age of ignorance seem to have looked upon God and the czar as one,
+and submitted to blows, wounds, and insults with a blind servility to
+which only abject superstition could have led.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image4.jpg" width="400" height="622" alt="CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT." title="" />
+<span class="caption">CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The end came at last, in a final freak of madness. An humble
+supplication, coming from the most faithful of his subjects, was made to
+him; but in his distorted brain it indicated a new conspiracy of the
+boyars, of which his eldest and ablest son was to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> the leader. In a
+transport of insane rage the frenzied emperor raised his iron-bound
+staff and struck to the earth with a mortal blow this hope of his race.</p>
+
+<p>This was his last excess. Regret for his hasty act, though not remorse
+for his murders, assailed him, and he soon after died, after twenty-six
+years of insane cruelties, ordering new executions almost with his
+latest breath.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the year 1558 a family of wealthy merchants, Stroganof by name, began
+to barter with the Tartar tribes dwelling east of the Ural Mountains.
+Ivan IV. had granted to this family the desert districts of the Kama,
+with great privileges in trade, and the power to levy troops and build
+forts&mdash;at their own expense&mdash;as a security against the robbers who
+crossed the Urals to prey upon their settled neighbors to the west. In
+return the Stroganofs were privileged to follow their example in a more
+legal manner, by the brigandage of trade between civilization and
+barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>These robbers came from the region now known as Siberia, which extends
+to-day through thousands of miles of width, from the Urals to the
+Pacific. Before this time we know little about this great expanse of
+land. It seems to have been peopled by a succession of races, immigrants
+from the south, each new wave of people driving the older tribes deeper
+into the frozen regions of the north. Early in the Christian era there
+came hither a people destitute of iron, but expert in the working of
+bronze, silver, and gold. They had wide regions of irrigated fields, and
+a higher civilization than that of those who in time took their place.</p>
+
+<p>People of Turkish origin succeeded these tribes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> about the eleventh
+century. They brought with them weapons of iron and made fine pottery.
+In the thirteenth century, when the great Mongol outbreak took place
+under Genghis Khan, the Turkish kingdom in Siberia was destroyed and
+Tartars took their place. Civilization went decidedly down hill. Such
+was the state of affairs when Russia began to turn eyes of longing
+towards Siberia.</p>
+
+<p>The busy traders of Novgorod had made their way into Siberia as early as
+the eleventh century. But this republic fell, and the trade came to an
+end. In 1555, Khan Ediger, who had made himself a kingdom in Siberia,
+and whose people had crossed swords with the Russians beyond the Urals,
+sent envoys to Moscow, who consented to pay to Russia a yearly tribute
+of a thousand sables, thus acknowledging Russian supremacy.</p>
+
+<p>This tribute showed that there were riches beyond the mountains. The
+Stroganofs made their way to the barrier of the hills, and it was not
+long before the trader was followed by the soldier. The invasion of
+Siberia was due to an event which for the time threatened the total
+overthrow of the Russian government. A Cossack brigand, Stepan Rozni by
+name, had long defied the forces of the czar, and gradually gained in
+strength until he had an army of three hundred thousand men under his
+command. If he had been a soldier of ability he might have made himself
+lord of the empire. Being a brigand in grain, he was soon overturned and
+his forces dispersed.</p>
+
+<p>Among his followers was one Yermak, a chief of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> the Cossacks of the Don,
+whom the czar sentenced to death for his love of plunder, but afterwards
+pardoned. Yermak and his followers soon found the rule of Moscow too
+stringent for their ideas of personal liberty, and he led a Cossack band
+to the Stroganof settlements in Perm.</p>
+
+<p>Tradition tells us that the Stroganof of that date did not relish the
+presence of his unruly guests, with their free ideas of property rights,
+and suggested to Yermak that Siberia offered a promising field for a
+ready sword. He would supply him with food and arms if he saw fit to
+lead an expedition thither.</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion accorded well with Yermak's humor. He at once began to
+enlist volunteers for the enterprise, adding to his own Cossack band a
+reinforcement of Russians and Tartars and of German and Polish prisoners
+of war, until he had sixteen hundred and thirty-six men under his
+command. With these he crossed the mountains in 1580, and terrified the
+natives to submission with his fire-arms, a form of weapon new to them.
+Making their way down the Tura and Taghil Rivers, the adventurers
+crossed the immense untrodden forests of Tobol, and Kutchum, the Tartar
+khan, was assailed in his capital town of Ister, near where Tobolsk now
+stands.</p>
+
+<p>Many battles with the Tartars were fought, Ister was taken, the khan
+fled to the steppes, and his cousin was made prisoner by the
+adventurers. Yermak now, having added by his valor a great domain to the
+Russian empire, purchased the favor of Ivan IV. by the present of this
+new kingdom. He made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> his way to the Irtish and Obi, opened trade with
+the rich khanate of Bokhara, south of the desert, and in various ways
+sought to consolidate the conquest he had made. But misfortune came to
+the conqueror. One day, being surprised by the Tartars when unprepared,
+he leaped into the Irtish in full armor and tried to swim its rapid
+current. The armor he wore had been sent him by the czar, and had served
+him well in war. It proved too heavy for his powers of swimming, bore
+him beneath the hungry waters, and brought the career of the victorious
+brigand to an end. After his death his dismayed followers fled from
+Siberia, yielding it to Tartar hands again.</p>
+
+<p>Yermak&mdash;in his way a rival of Cortez and Pizarro&mdash;gained by his conquest
+the highest fame among the Russian people. They exalted him to the level
+of a hero, and their church has raised him to the rank of a saint, at
+whose tomb miracles are performed. As regards the Russian saints, it may
+here be remarked that they have been constructed, as a rule, from very
+unsanctified timber, as may be seen from the examples we have heretofore
+given. Not only the people and the priests but the poets have paid their
+tribute to Yermak's fame, epic poems having been written about his
+exploits and his deeds made familiar in popular song.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Cossacks withdrew after Yermak's death, others soon succeeded
+them. The furs of Siberia formed a rich prize whose allurement could not
+be ignored, and new bands of hunters and adventurers poured into the
+country, sustained by regular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> troops from Moscow. The advance was made
+through the northern districts to avoid the denser populations of the
+south. New detachments of troops were sent, who built forts and settled
+laborers around them, with the duty of supplying the garrisons with
+food, powder, and arms. By 1650 the Amur was reached and followed to the
+Pacific Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>It was a brief period in which to conquer a country of such vast extent.
+But no organized resistance was met, and the land lay almost at the
+mercy of the invaders. There was vigorous opposition by the tribes, but
+they were soon subdued. The only effective resistance they met was that
+of the Chinese, who obliged the Cossacks to quit the Amur, which river
+they claimed. In 1855 the advance here began again, and the whole course
+of the river was occupied, with much territory to its south. Siberia,
+thus conquered by arms, is being made secure for Russia by a
+trans-continental railroad and hosts of new settlers, and promises in
+the future to become a land of the greatest prosperity and wealth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image5.jpg" width="600" height="359" alt="KIAKHTA, SIBERIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">KIAKHTA, SIBERIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE MACBETH OF RUSSIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the 15th of May, 1591, five boys were playing in the court-yard of
+the Russian palace at Uglitch. With them were the governess and nurse of
+the principal child&mdash;a boy ten years of age&mdash;and a servant-woman. The
+child had a knife in his hand, with which he was amusing himself by
+thrusting it into the ground or cutting a piece of wood.</p>
+
+<p>Unluckily, the attention of the women for a brief interval was drawn
+aside. When the nurse looked at her charge again, to her horror she
+found him writhing on the ground, bathed in blood which poured from a
+large wound in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>The shrieks of the nurse quickly drew others to the spot, and in a
+moment there was a terrible uproar, for the dying boy was no less a
+person than Dmitri, son of Ivan the Terrible, brother of Feodor, the
+reigning czar, and heir to the crown of Russia. The tocsin was sounded,
+and the populace thronged into the court-yard, thinking that the palace
+was on fire. On learning what had actually happened they burst into
+uncontrollable fury. The child had not killed himself, but had been
+murdered, they said, and a victim for their rage was sought.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the governess was hurled bleeding and half alive to the
+ground, and one of her slaves, who came to her aid, was killed. The
+keeper of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> palace was accused of the crime, and, though he fled and
+barred himself within a house, the infuriated mob broke through the
+doors and killed him and his son. The body of the child was carried into
+a neighboring church, and here the son of the governess, against whom
+suspicion had been directed, was murdered before it under his mother's
+eyes. Fresh victims to the wrath of the populace were sought, and the
+lives of the governess and some others were with difficulty saved.</p>
+
+<p>As for the child who had killed himself or had been killed, alarming
+stories had recently been set afloat. He was said to be the image of his
+terrible father, and to manifest an unnatural delight in blood and the
+sight of pain, his favorite amusement being to torture and kill animals.
+But it is doubtful if any of this was true, for there was then one in
+power who had a reason for arousing popular prejudice against the boy.</p>
+
+<p>That this may be better understood we must go back. Ivan had killed his
+ablest son, as told in a previous story, and Feodor, the present czar,
+was a feeble, timid, sickly incapable, who was a mere tool in the hands
+of his ambitious minister, Boris Godunof. Boris craved the throne.
+Between him and this lofty goal lay only the feeble Feodor and the child
+Dmitri, the sole direct survivors of the dynasty of Rurik. With their
+death without children that great line would be extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>The story of Boris reminds us in several particulars of that of the
+Scotch usurper Macbeth. His future career had been predicted, in the
+dead of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> night, by astrologers, who said, "You shall yet wear the
+crown." Then they became silent, as if seeing horrors which they dared
+not reveal. Boris insisted on knowing more, and was told that he should
+reign, but only for seven years. In joy he exclaimed, "No matter, though
+it be for only seven days, so that I reign!"</p>
+
+<p>This ambitious lord, who ruled already if he did not reign, had
+therefore a purpose in exciting prejudice against and distrust of
+Dmitri, the only heir to the crown, and in taking steps for his removal.
+Feodor dead, the throne would fall like ripe fruit into his own hands.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, whether guilty of the murder or not, he took active steps to clear
+himself of the dark suspicion of guilt. An inquest was held, and the
+verdict rendered that the boy had killed himself by accident. At once
+the regent proceeded to punish those who had taken part in the outbreak
+at Uglitch. The czaritza, mother of Dmitri, who had first incited the
+mob, was forced to take the veil. Her brothers, who had declared the act
+one of murder, were sent to remote prisons. Uglitch was treated with
+frightful severity. More than two hundred of its inhabitants were put to
+death. Others were maimed and thrown into dungeons. All the rest, except
+those who had fled, were exiled to Siberia, and with them was banished
+the very church-bell which had called them out by its tocsin peal. A
+town of thirty thousand inhabitants was depopulated that, as people
+said, every evidence of the guilt of Boris Godunof might be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>This dreadful violence did Boris more harm than good. Macbeth stabbed
+the sleeping grooms to hide his guilt. Boris destroyed a city. But he
+only caused the people to look on him as an assassin and to doubt the
+motives of even his noblest acts.</p>
+
+<p>A fierce fire broke out that left much of Moscow in ruin. Boris rebuilt
+whole streets and distributed money freely among the people. But even
+those who received this aid said that he had set fire to the city
+himself that he might win applause with his money. A Tartar army invaded
+the empire and appeared at the gates of Moscow. All were in terror but
+Boris, who hastily built redoubts, recruited soldiers, and inspired all
+with his own courage. The Tartars were defeated, and hardly a third of
+them reached home again. Yet all the return the able regent received was
+the popular saying that he had called in the Tartars in order to make
+the people forget the death of Dmitri.</p>
+
+<p>A child was born to Feodor,&mdash;a girl. The enemies of the regent instantly
+declared that a boy had been born and that he had substituted for it a
+girl. It died in a few days, and then it was said that he had poisoned
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Boris went on, disdaining his enemies, winning power as he went. He
+gained the favor of the clergy by giving Russia a patriarch of its own.
+The nobles who opposed him were banished or crushed. He made the
+peasants slaves of the land, and thus won over the petty lords. Cities
+were built, fortresses erected, the enemies of Russia defeated; Siberia
+was brought under firm control, and the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> nation made to see that
+it had never been ruled by abler hands.</p>
+
+<p>Boris in all this was strongly paving his way to the throne. In 1598 the
+weak Feodor died. He left no sons, and with him, its fifty-second
+sovereign, the dynasty of Rurik the Varangian came to an end. It had
+existed for more than seven centuries. Branches of the house of Rurik
+remained, yet no member of it dared aspire to that throne which the
+tyrant Ivan had made odious.</p>
+
+<p>A new ruler had to be chosen by the voice of those in power, and Boris
+stood supreme among the aspirants. The chronicles tell us, with striking
+brevity, "The election begins; the people look up to the nobles, the
+nobles to the grandees, the grandees to the patriarch; he speaks, he
+names Boris; and instantaneously, and as one man, all re-echo that
+formidable name."</p>
+
+<p>And now Godunof played an amusing game. He held the reins of power so
+firmly that he could safely enact a transparent farce. He refused the
+sceptre. The grandees and the people begged him to accept it, and he
+took refuge from their solicitations in a monastery. This comedy, which
+even C&aelig;sar had not long played, Boris kept up for over a month. Yet from
+his cell he moved Russia at his will.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the more he seemed to withdraw the more eager became all to
+make him accept. Priests, nobles, people, besieged him with their
+supplications. He refused, and again refused, and for six weeks kept all
+Russia in suspense. Not until he saw before him the highest grandees and
+clergy of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> realm on their knees, tears in their eyes, in their hands
+the relics of the saints and the image of the Redeemer, did he yield
+what seemed a reluctant assent, and come forth from his cell to accept
+that throne which was the chief object of his desires.</p>
+
+<p>But Boris on the throne still resembled Macbeth. The memory of his
+crimes pursued him, and he sought to rule by fear instead of love. He
+endeavored, indeed, to win the people by shows and prodigality, but the
+powerful he ruled with a heavy hand, destroying all whom he had reason
+to fear, threatening the extinction of many great families by forbidding
+their members to marry, seizing the wealth of those he had ruined. The
+family of the Romanofs, allied to the line of Rurik, and soon to become
+pre-eminent in Russia, he pursued with rancor, its chief being obliged
+to turn monk to escape the axe. As monk he in time rose to the headship
+of the church.</p>
+
+<p>The peasantry, who had before possessed liberty of movement, were by him
+bound as serfs to the soil. Thousands of them fled, and an insupportable
+inquisition was established, as hateful to the landowners as to the
+serfs. All this was made worse by famine and pestilence, which ravaged
+Russia for three years. And in the midst of this disaster the ghost of
+the slain Dmitri rose to plague his murderer. In other words, one who
+claimed to be the slain prince appeared, and avenged the murdered child,
+his story forming one of the most interesting tales in the history of
+Russia. It is this which we have now to tell.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p><p>About midsummer of the year 1603 Adam Wiszniowiecki, a Polish prince,
+angry at some act of negligence in a young man whom he had lately
+employed, gave him a box on the ear and called him by an insulting name.</p>
+
+<p>"If you knew who I am, prince," said the indignant youth, "you would not
+strike me nor call me by such a name."</p>
+
+<p>"Knew who you are! Why, who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am Dmitri, son of Ivan IV., and the rightful czar of Russia."</p>
+
+<p>Surprised by this extraordinary statement, the prince questioned him,
+and was told a plausible story by the young man. He had escaped the
+murderer, he said, the boy who died being the son of a serf, who
+resembled and had been substituted for him by his physician Simon, who
+knew what Boris designed. The physician had fled with him from Uglitch
+and put him in the hands of a loyal gentleman, who for safety had
+consigned him to a monastery.</p>
+
+<p>The physician and gentleman were both dead, but the young man showed the
+prince a Russian seal which bore Dmitri's arms and name, and a gold
+cross adorned with jewels of great value, given him, he said, by his
+princely godfather. He was about the age which Dmitri would have
+reached, and, as a Russian servant who had seen the child said, had
+warts and other marks like those of the true Dmitri. He possessed also a
+persuasiveness of manner which soon won over the Polish prince.</p>
+
+<p>The pretender was accepted as an illustrious guest by Prince
+Wiszniowiecki, given clothes, horses, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>carriages, and suitable retinue,
+and presented to other Polish dignitaries. Dmitri, as he was thenceforth
+known, bore well the honors now showered upon him. He was at ease among
+the noblest; gracious, affable, but always dignified; and all said that
+he had the deportment of a prince.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke Polish as well as Russian, was thoroughly versed in Russian
+history and genealogy, and was, moreover, an accomplished horseman,
+versed in field sports, and of striking vigor and agility, qualities
+highly esteemed by the Polish nobles.</p>
+
+<p>The story of this event quickly reached Russia, and made its way with
+surprising rapidity through all the provinces. The czarevitch Dmitri had
+not been murdered, after all! He was alive in Poland, and was about to
+call the usurper to a terrible reckoning. The whole nation was astir
+with the story, and various accounts of his having been seen in Russia
+and of having played a brave part in the military expeditions of the
+Cossacks were set afloat.</p>
+
+<p>Boris soon heard of this claimant of the throne. He also received the
+disturbing news that a monk was among the Cossacks of the Don urging
+them to take up arms for the czarevitch who would soon be among them.
+His first movement was the injudicious one of trying to bribe
+Wiszniowiecki to give up the impostor to him,&mdash;the result being to
+confirm the belief that he was in truth the prince he claimed to be.</p>
+
+<p>The events that followed are too numerous to be given in detail, and it
+must suffice here to say that on October 31, 1604, Dmitri entered
+Russian territory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> at the head of a small Polish army, of less than five
+thousand in all. This was a trifling force with which to invade an
+empire, but it grew rapidly as he advanced. Town after town submitted on
+his appearance, bringing to him, bound and gagged, the governors set
+over them by Boris. Dmitri at once set them free and treated them with
+politic humanity.</p>
+
+<p>The first town to offer resistance was Novgorod-Swerski, which Peter
+Basmanof, a general of Boris, had garrisoned with five hundred men.
+Basmanof was brave and obstinate, and for several weeks he held the
+force of Dmitri before this petty place, while Boris was making vigorous
+efforts to collect an army among his discontented people. On the last
+day of 1604 the two armies met, fifteen thousand against fifty thousand,
+and on a broad open plain that gave the weaker force no advantage of
+position.</p>
+
+<p>But Dmitri made up for weakness by soldierly spirit. At the head of some
+six hundred mail-clad Polish knights he vigorously charged the Russian
+right wing, hurled it back upon the centre, and soon had the whole army
+in disorder. The soldiers flung down their arms and fled, shouting, "The
+czarevitch! the czarevitch!"</p>
+
+<p>Yet in less than a month this important victory was followed by a
+defeat. Dmitri had been weakened by his Poles being called home. Boris
+gathered new forces, and on January 20, 1605, the armies met again, now
+seventy thousand Muscovites against less than quarter their number. Yet
+victory would have come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> to Dmitri again but for treachery in his army.
+He charged the enemy with the same fierceness as before, bore down all
+before him, routed the cavalry, tore a great gap in the line of the
+infantry, and would have swept the field had the main body of his army,
+consisting of eight thousand Zaporogues, come to his aid.</p>
+
+<p>At this vital moment this great body of cavalry, half the entire army,
+wheeled and quit the field,&mdash;bribed, it is said, by Boris. Such a
+defection, at such a moment, was fatal. The Russians rallied; the day
+was lost; nothing but flight remained. Dmitri fled, hotly pursued, and
+his horse suffering from a wound. He was saved by his devoted Cossack
+infantry, four thousand in number, who stood to their guns and faced the
+whole Muscovite army. They were killed to a man, but Dmitri
+escaped,&mdash;favored, as we are told, by some of the opposing leaders, who
+did not want to make Boris too powerful.</p>
+
+<p>All was not lost while Dmitri remained at liberty. Lost armies could be
+restored. He took refuge in Putivle, one of the towns which had
+pronounced in his favor, and while his enemies, who proved half-hearted
+in the cause of Boris, wasted their time in besieging a small fortress,
+new adherents flocked to his banner. Boris was furious against his
+generals, but his fury caused them to hate instead of to serve him. He
+tried to get rid of Dmitri by poison, but his agents were discovered and
+punished, and the attempt helped his rival more than a victory would
+have done.</p>
+
+<p>Dmitri wrote to Boris, declaring that Heaven had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> protected him against
+this base attempt, and ironically promising to extend mercy towards him.
+"Descend from the throne you have usurped, and seek in the solitude of
+the cloister to reconcile yourself with Heaven. In that case I will
+forget your crimes, and even assure you of my sovereign protection."</p>
+
+<p>All this was bitter to the Russian Macbeth. The princely blood which he
+had shed to gain the throne seemed to redden the air about him. The
+ghost of his slain victim haunted him. His power, indeed, seemed as
+great as ever. He was an autocrat still, the master of a splendid court,
+the ruler over a vast empire. Yet he knew that they who came with
+reverence and adulation into his presence hated him in their hearts, and
+anguish must have smitten the usurper to the soul.</p>
+
+<p>His sudden death seemed to indicate this. On the 13th of April, 1605,
+after dining in state with some distinguished foreigners, illness
+suddenly seized him, blood burst from his mouth, nose, and ears, and
+within two hours he was dead. He had reigned six years,&mdash;nearly the full
+term predicted by the soothsayers.</p>
+
+<p>The story of Dmitri is a long one still, but must be dealt with here
+with the greatest brevity. Feodor, the son of Boris, was proclaimed czar
+by the boyars of the court. The oath of allegiance was taken by the
+whole city; all seemed to favor him; yet within six weeks this boyish
+czar was deposed and executed without a sword being drawn in his
+defence.</p>
+
+<p>Basmanof, the leading general of Boris, had turned to the cause of
+Dmitri, and the army seconded him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> The people of Moscow declared in
+favor of the pretender, there were a few executions and banishments, and
+on the 20th of June the new czar entered Moscow in great pomp, amid the
+acclamations of an immense multitude, who thronged the streets, the
+windows, and the house-tops; and the young man who, less than two years
+before, had had his ears boxed by a Polish prince, was now proclaimed
+emperor and autocrat of the mighty Russian realm.</p>
+
+<p>It was a short reign to which the false Dmitri&mdash;for there seems to be no
+doubt of the death of the true Dmitri&mdash;had come. Within less than a year
+Moscow was in rebellion, he was slain, and the throne was vacant. And
+this result was largely due to his generous and kindly spirit, largely
+to his trusting nature and disregard of Russian opinion.</p>
+
+<p>No man could have been more unlike the tyrant Ivan, his reputed father.
+Dmitri proved kind and generous to all, even bestowing honors upon
+members of the family of Godunof. He remitted heavy taxes, punished
+unjust judges, paid the debts contracted by Ivan, passed laws in the
+interest of the serfs, and held himself ready to receive the petitions
+and redress the grievances of the humblest of his subjects. His
+knowledge of state affairs was remarkable for one of his age, and Russia
+had never had an abler, nobler-minded, and more kindly-hearted czar.</p>
+
+<p>But Dmitri in discretion was still a boy, and made trouble where an
+older head would have mended it. He offended the boyars of his council
+by laughing at their ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"Go and travel," he said; "observe the ways of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> civilized nations, for
+you are no better than savages."</p>
+
+<p>The advice was good, but not wise. He offended the Russian demand for
+decorum in a czar by riding through the streets on a furious stallion,
+like a Cossack of the Don. In religion he was lax, favoring secretly the
+Latin Church. He chose Poles instead of Russians for his secretaries.
+And he excited general disgust by the announcement that he was about to
+marry a Polish woman, heretical to the Russian faith. The people were
+still more incensed by the conduct of Marina, this foreign bride, both
+before and after the wedding, she giving continual offence by her
+insistence on Polish customs.</p>
+
+<p>While thus offending the prejudices and superstitions of his people,
+Dmitri prepared for his downfall by his trustfulness and clemency. He
+dismissed the spies with whom former czars had surrounded themselves,
+and laid himself freely open to treachery. The result of his acts and
+his openness was a conspiracy, which was fortunately discovered.
+Shuiski, its leader, was condemned to be executed. Yet as he knelt with
+the axe lifted above him, he was respited and banished to Siberia; and
+on his way thither a courier overtook him, bearing a pardon for him and
+his banished brothers. His rank was restored, and he was again made a
+councillor of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>Clemency like this was praiseworthy, but it proved fatal. Like C&aelig;sar
+before him, Dmitri was over-clement and over-confident, and with the
+same result. Yet his answer to those who urged him to punish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> the
+conspirator was a noble one, and his trustfulness worth far more than a
+security due to cruelty and suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I have sworn not to shed Christian blood, and I will
+keep my oath. There are two ways of governing an empire,&mdash;tyranny and
+generosity. I choose the latter. I will not be a tyrant. I will not
+spare money; I will scatter it on all hands."</p>
+
+<p>Only for the offence which he gave his people by disregarding their
+prejudices, Dmitri might have long and ably reigned. His confidence
+opened the way to a new conspiracy, of which Shuiski was again at the
+head. Reports were spread through the city that Dmitri was a heretic and
+an impostor, and that he had formed a plot to massacre the Muscovites by
+the aid of the Poles whom he had introduced into the city.</p>
+
+<p>As a result of the insidious methods of the conspirators, the whole city
+broke out in rebellion, and at daybreak on the 29th of May, 1606, a body
+of boyars gathered in the great square in full armor, and, followed by a
+multitude of townsmen, advanced on the Kremlin, whose gates were thrown
+open by traitors within.</p>
+
+<p>Dmitri, who had only fifty guards in the palace, was aroused by the din
+of bells and the uproar in the streets. An armed multitude filled the
+outer court, shouting, "Death to the impostor!"</p>
+
+<p>Soon conspirators appeared in the palace, where the czar, snatching a
+sword from one of the guards, and attended by Basmanof, attacked them,
+crying out, "I am not a Boris for you!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p><p>He killed several with his own hands, but Basmanof was slain before
+him, and he and the guards were driven back from chamber to chamber,
+until the guards, finding that the czar had disappeared, laid down their
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>Dmitri, seeing that resistance was hopeless, had sought a distant room,
+and here had leaped or been thrown from a window to the ground. The
+height was thirty feet, his leg was broken by the fall, and he fainted
+with the pain.</p>
+
+<p>His last hope of life was gone. Some faithful soldiers who found him
+sought to defend him against the mob who soon appeared, but their
+resistance was of no avail. Dmitri was seized, his royal garments were
+torn off, and the caftan of a pastry-cook was placed upon him. Thus
+dressed, he was carried into a room of the palace for the mockery of a
+trial.</p>
+
+<p>"Bastard dog," cried one of the Russians, "tell us who you are and
+whence you came."</p>
+
+<p>"You all know I am your czar," replied Dmitri, bravely, "the legitimate
+son of Ivan Vassilievitch. If you desire my death, give me time at least
+to collect my senses."</p>
+
+<p>At this a Russian gentleman named Valnief shouted out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What is the use of so much talk with the heretic dog? This is the way I
+confess this Polish fifer." And he put an end to the agony of Dmitri by
+shooting him through the breast.</p>
+
+<p>In an instant the mob rushed on the lifeless body, slashing it with axes
+and swords. It was carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> out, placed on a table, and a set of
+bagpipes set on the breast with the pipe in the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"You played on us long enough; now play for us," cried the ribald
+insulter.</p>
+
+<p>Others lashed the corpse with their whips, crying, "Look at the czar,
+the hero of the Germans."</p>
+
+<p>For three days Dmitri's body lay exposed to the view of the populace,
+but it was so hacked and mangled that none could recognize in it the
+gallant young man who a few days before had worn the imperial robes and
+crown.</p>
+
+<p>On the third night a blue flame was seen playing over the table, and the
+guards, frightened by this natural result of putrefaction, hastened to
+bury the body outside the walls. But superstitious terrors followed the
+prodigy: it was whispered that Dmitri was a wizard who, by magic arts,
+had the power to come to life from the grave. To prevent this the body
+was dug up again and burned, and the ashes were collected, mixed with
+gunpowder, and rammed into a cannon, which was then dragged to the gate
+by which Dmitri had entered Moscow. Here the match was applied, and the
+ashes of the late czar were hurled down the road leading to Poland,
+whence he had come.</p>
+
+<p>Thus died a man who, impostor though he seems to have been, was perhaps
+the noblest and best of all the Russian czars, while the story of his
+rise and fall forms the most dramatic tale in all the annals of the
+empire over which for one short year he ruled.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE ERA OF THE IMPOSTORS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have told how the ashes of Dmitri were loaded into a cannon and fired
+from the gate of Moscow. They fell like seeds of war on the soil of
+Russia, and for years that unhappy land was torn by faction and harried
+by invasion. From those ashes new Dmitris seemed to spring, other
+impostors rose to claim the crown, and until all these shades were laid
+peace fled from the land.</p>
+
+<p>Vassili Shuiski, the leader in the insurrection against Dmitri, had
+himself proclaimed czar. He was destined to learn the truth of the
+saying, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." For hardly had the
+mob that murdered Dmitri dispersed before rumors arose that their victim
+was not dead. His body had been so mangled that none could recognize it,
+and the story was set afloat that it was one of his officers who had
+been killed, and that he had escaped. Four swift horses were missing
+from the stables of the palace, and these were at once connected with
+the assumed flight of the czar. Rumor was in the air, and even in Moscow
+doubts of Dmitri's death grew rife.</p>
+
+<p>Fuel soon fell on the flame. Three strangers in Russian dress, but
+speaking the language of Poland, crossed the Oka River, and gave the
+ferryman the high fee of six ducats, saying, "You have ferried the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
+czar; when he comes back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not forget
+your service."</p>
+
+<p>At a German inn, a little farther on, the same party used similar
+language. This story spread like wildfire through Russia, and deeply
+alarmed the new czar. To put it down he sought to play on the religious
+feelings of the Russians, by making a saint of the original Dmitri. A
+body was produced, said to have been taken from the grave of the slain
+boy at Uglitch, but in a remarkable state of preservation, since it
+still displayed the fresh hue of life and held in its hand some
+strangely preserved nuts. Tales of miracles performed by the relics of
+the new saint were also spread, but with little avail, for the people
+were not very ready to believe the man who had stolen the throne.</p>
+
+<p>War broke out despite these manufactured miracles. Prince
+Shakhofskoi&mdash;the supposed leader of the party who had told the story at
+the Oka&mdash;was soon in the field with an army of Cossacks and peasants,
+and defeated the royal army. But the new Dmitri, in whose name he
+fought, did not appear. It seemed as if Shakhofskoi had not yet been
+able to find a suitable person to play the part.</p>
+
+<p>Russia, however, was not long without a pretender. During Dmitri's reign
+a young man had appeared among the Cossacks of the Volga, calling
+himself Peter Feodorovitch, and claiming to be the son of the former
+czar Feodor. This man now reappeared and presented himself to the rebel
+army as the representative of his uncle Dmitri. He was eagerly welcomed
+by Shakhofskoi, who badly needed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> some one whom he might offer to his
+men as a prince.</p>
+
+<p>And now we have to describe one of the strangest sieges in the annals of
+history. Shakhofskoi, finding himself threatened by a powerful army,
+took refuge in the fortified town of Toula. Here he was soon joined by
+Bolotnikof, a Polish general who had come to Russia with a commission
+bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. In this stronghold they were
+besieged by an army of one hundred thousand men, led by the czar
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Toula was strong. It was vigorously defended, the garrison fighting
+bravely for their lives. No progress was made with the siege, and
+Shuiski grew disconsolate, for he knew that to fail now would be ruin.</p>
+
+<p>From this state of anxiety he was relieved by a remarkable proposal,
+that of an obscure individual who promised to drown all the people of
+Toula and deliver the town into his hands. This extraordinary offer,
+made by a monk named Kravkof, was at first received with incredulous
+laughter, and it was some time before the czar and his council could be
+brought to listen to the words of an idle braggart, as they deemed the
+stranger. In the end the czar asked him to explain his plan.</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be the following. Toula lay in a narrow valley, down whose
+centre flowed the little river Oupa, passing through the town. Kravkof
+suggested that they should dam this stream below the town. "Do as I
+say," he remarked, "and if the whole town is not under water in a few
+hours, I will answer for the failure with my head."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p><p>The project thus presented seemed feasible. Immediately all the millers
+in the army, men used to the kind of work required, were put under his
+orders, and the other soldiers were set to carrying sacks of earth to
+the place chosen for the dam. As this rose in height, the water backed
+up in the town. Soon many of the streets became canals, hundreds of
+houses, undermined by the water, were destroyed, and the promise of
+Kravkof seemed likely to be fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the garrison, confined in what had become a walled-in lake, fought
+with desperate obstinacy. Water surrounded them, yet they waded to the
+walls and fought. Famine decimated them, yet they starved and fought. A
+terrible epidemic broke out in the water-soaked city, but the garrison
+fought on. Dreadful as were their surroundings, they held out with
+unflinching courage and intrepidity.</p>
+
+<p>The dam was the centre of the struggle. The besiegers sought to raise it
+still higher and deepen the water in the streets; the besieged did their
+best to break it down and relieve the city. It had grown to a great
+height with such rapidity that the superstitious people of Toula felt
+sure that magic had aided in its building and fancied that it might be
+destroyed by magic means. A monk declared that Shuiski had brought
+devils to his aid, but professed to be a proficient in the black art,
+and offered, for a hundred roubles, to fight the demons in their own
+element.</p>
+
+<p>Bolotnikof accepted his terms, and he stripped, plunged into the river,
+and disappeared. For a full<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> hour nothing was seen of him, and every one
+gave him up for lost. But at the end of that time he rose to the surface
+of the water, his body covered with scratches. The story he had to tell
+was, to say the least, remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a frightful conflict," he said, "with the twelve thousand
+devils Shuiski has at work upon his dam. I have settled six thousand of
+them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give
+in."</p>
+
+<p>Thus against men and devils alike, against water, famine, and
+pestilence, fought the brave men of Toula, holding out with
+extraordinary courage. Letters came to them in Dmitri's name, promising
+help, but it never came. At length, after months of this brave defence
+had elapsed, Shakhofskoi proposed that they should capitulate. The
+Cossacks of the garrison, furious at the suggestion, seized and thrust
+him into a dungeon. Not until every scrap of food had been eaten, horses
+and dogs devoured, even leather gnawed as food, did Bolotnikof and Peter
+the pretender offer to yield, and then only on condition that the
+soldiers should receive honorable treatment. If not, they would die with
+arms in their hands, and devour one another as food, rather than
+surrender. As for themselves, they asked for no pledges of safety.</p>
+
+<p>Shuiski accepted the terms, and the gates were opened. Bolotnikof
+advanced boldly to the czar and offered himself as a victim, presenting
+his sword with the edge laid against his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> or wrongly, calls
+himself Dmitri," he said. "Deserted by him, I am in your power. Cut off
+my head if you will; or, if you will spare my life, I will serve you as
+I have served him."</p>
+
+<p>This appeal was wasted on Shuiski. He forgot the clemency which the czar
+Dmitri had formerly shown to him, sent Bolotnikof to Kargopol, and soon
+after ordered him to be drowned. Peter the pretender was hanged on the
+spot. Shakhofskoi alone was spared. They found him in chains, which he
+said had been placed on him because he counselled the obstinate rebels
+to submit. Shuiski set him free, and the first use he made of his
+liberty was to kindle the rebellion again.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended this remarkable siege, one in some respects without parallel
+in the history of war. What followed must be briefly told. Though the
+siege of Toula ended with the hanging of one pretender to the throne,
+another was already in the field. The new Dmitri, in whose name the war
+was waged, had made his appearance during the siege. Some of the
+officers of the first Dmitri pretended to recognize him, but in reality
+he was a coarse, vulgar, ignorant knave, who had badly learned his
+lesson, and lacked all the native princeliness of his predecessor.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he had soon a large army at his back, and with it, on April 24,
+1608, he defeated the army of the czar with great slaughter. He might
+easily have taken Moscow, but instead of advancing on it he halted at
+the village of Tushino, twelve versts away, where he held his court for
+seventeen months.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile still another pretender appeared, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> called himself Feodor,
+son of the czar Feodor. He presented himself to the Don Cossacks, who
+brought him in chains to Dmitri, by whom he was promptly put to death.
+Soon afterwards Marina, wife of the first Dmitri, who had been released,
+with her father, by Shuiski, was brought into the camp of the pretender.
+And here an interesting bit of comedy was played. Marina, rather than go
+back to meet ridicule in Poland, was ready to become the wife of this
+vulgar impostor, though she saw at once that he was not the man he
+claimed to be.</p>
+
+<p>She met him coldly at first, but at a second meeting she greeted him
+with a great show of tenderness before the whole army, being glad, it
+would appear, to regain her old position on any terms. The news that
+Marina had recognized the pretender brought over numbers to his side,
+and soon nearly all Russia had declared for him, the only cities holding
+out being Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.</p>
+
+<p>The false Dmitri had now reached the summit of his fortunes. A rapid
+decline followed. One of his generals, who laid siege to the monastery
+of the Trinity, near Moscow, was repulsed. His partisans were defeated
+in other quarters. Soon the whole aspect of the war changed. A new enemy
+to Russia came into the field, Sigismund, King of Poland, who laid siege
+to the strong city of Smolensk, while the army of the czar, which
+marched to its relief, suffered an annihilating defeat.</p>
+
+<p>This result closed the reign of Shuiski. An insurrection broke out in
+Moscow, he was forced to become a monk, and in the end was delivered to
+Sigismund<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> and died in prison. Thus was Dmitri avenged. The new
+condition of affairs proved as disastrous to the false Dmitri. His Poles
+deserted him, his power vanished, and he descended to the level of a
+mere Cossack robber. In December, 1610, murder ended his career.</p>
+
+<p>Smolensk fell after a siege of eighteen months, but at the last moment a
+powder magazine exploded and set fire to the city, and Sigismund became
+master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, attacked by the
+Russians, took possession of the Kremlin, burned down most of the city,
+and massacred a hundred thousand of the people. Anarchy was rampant
+everywhere. New chiefs appeared in all quarters. Each town declared for
+itself. The Swedes took possession of Novgorod. A third Dmitri appeared,
+and dwelt in state for a while, but was soon taken and hanged. The whole
+great empire was in a state of frightful confusion, and seemed as if it
+was about to fall to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>From this fate it was saved by one of the common people, a butcher of
+Nijni Novgorod, Kozma Minin by name. Brave, honest, patriotic, and
+sensible, this man aroused his fellow-citizens, who took up arms for the
+deliverance of their country. Other towns followed this example, an army
+was raised with Prince Pojarski at its head, and Minin, the patriotic
+butcher, seconded him in an administrative capacity, being hailed by the
+people as "the elect of the whole Russian empire."</p>
+
+<p>Driving the Poles before him, Pojarski entered Moscow, and in October,
+1612, became master of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> the Kremlin. The impostors all disappeared;
+Marina and her three-year-old son Ivan were captured, the child to be
+hanged and she to end her eventful life in prison; anarchy vanished, and
+peace returned to the realm.</p>
+
+<p>The end came in 1613, when a national council was convened to choose a
+new czar. Pojarski refused the crown, and Michael Romanof, a boy of
+sixteen, scion of one of the noblest families of Russia, and allied to
+the Ruriks by the female line, was elected czar. His descendants still
+hold the throne.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image6.jpg" width="600" height="496" alt="CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH THE CZAR IS CROWNED." title="" />
+<span class="caption">CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH THE CZAR IS CROWNED.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> noble families of Russia, for the most part descendants of the
+Scandinavian adventurers who had come in with Rurik, were as proud in
+their way as the descendants of the vikings who came to England under
+William of Normandy. Their books of pedigree were kept with the most
+scrupulous care, and in these were set down not only the genealogies of
+the families, but every office that had been held by any ancestor, at
+court, in the army, or in the administration.</p>
+
+<p>With this there is no special fault to be found. It is as well,
+doubtless, to keep the pedigrees of men as it is to keep those of horses
+and dogs; though the animals, being ignorant of their records, are less
+likely to make them a matter of pride and presumption. In Russia the
+fact that certain men knew the names and standing of their ancestors led
+to the most absurd consequences. The books of ancestry were constantly
+appealed to for the support of foolish pretensions, and the nobles of
+Russia strutted like so many peacocks in their insensate pride of
+family.</p>
+
+<p>In no other country has the question of precedence been carried to such
+ridiculous lengths as it was in Russia in the days of the early
+Romanofs. If a nobleman were appointed to a post at court or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> position
+in the army, he at once examined the books of ancestry to learn if the
+officials under whom he would serve had fewer ancestors on record than
+he. If such proved to be the case the office was refused, or accepted
+under protest, the government being, metaphorically, forced to fall on
+its knees to the haughtiness of its offended lordling.</p>
+
+<p>The folly of the nobles went even farther than this. The height of their
+genealogy counted for as much as its length. They would refuse to accept
+positions under persons whose ancestors were shown by the books to have
+been subordinate to theirs in the same positions. If it appeared that
+the John of five centuries before had been under the Peter of that
+period, the modern Peter was too proud to accept a similar position
+under the modern John. And so it went, until court life became a
+constant scene of bickering and discontent, and of murmurs at the most
+trifling slights and neglects. In short, it became necessary that an
+office of genealogy should be established at court, in which exact
+copies of the family trees and service registers of the noble families
+were kept, and the officers here employed found enough to keep them busy
+in settling the endless disputes of their lordly clients.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of Theodore, the third czar of the Romanof dynasty, this
+ridiculous sentiment reached its climax, and it became almost impossible
+to appoint a wise man to office over a fool, if the fool's ancestors had
+happened to hold the same office over those of the man of wisdom. The
+fancy seemed to be held that folly and wisdom are handed down from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+father to son, a conceit which is often the very reverse of the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Theodore was a feeble youth, who reigned little more than five years,
+yet in that time he managed to bury this folly out of sight. Annoyed by
+the constant bickerings of courtiers and officials, he consulted with
+his able minister, Prince Vassili Galitzin, and hit on a means of
+ridding himself of the difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>Proclamation was made that all the noble families of the kingdom should
+deliver their service rolls into court by a fixed date, that they might
+be cleared of certain errors which had unavoidably crept into them. The
+order was obeyed, and a multitude of these precious documents were
+brought into the palace halls of the czar. The heads of the noble
+families and the higher clergy were now sent for, composing a proud
+assembly, before whom the patriarch, who had received his instructions,
+made an eloquent address. He ended by speaking of the claims to
+precedence in the following words:</p>
+
+<p>"They are a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive
+the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good
+grain; they have introduced, even into the hearts of families,
+dissension, confusion, and hatred. But the pontiff comprehends the grand
+design of his czar; God alone could have inspired it!"</p>
+
+<p>Though utterly ignorant of what that design was, the grandees felt
+compelled to express a warm approval of these words. At this Theodore,
+who pretended to be enraptured by their unanimous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>applause, suddenly
+rose, and, simulating a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, proclaimed the
+abolition of all their hereditary claims.</p>
+
+<p>"That the very recollection of them may be forever extinguished," he
+exclaimed, "let all the papers relative to these titles be instantly
+consumed."</p>
+
+<p>The fire was already prepared, and by his orders the precious papers
+were hurled into the flames before the anguished eyes of the nobles, who
+did not dare in that despotic court to express their true feelings, and
+strove to hide their dismay under hollow acclamations of assent.</p>
+
+<p>As what they deemed their most valuable possessions were thus converted
+to ashes before their eyes, the patriarch again rose, and declared an
+anathema against any one who should dare to oppose this order of the
+czar. An "Amen" that was like a groan came from the lips of the
+horrified nobles, and precedence went up in flames.</p>
+
+<p>The czar had no thought of effacing the noble families. New books were
+prepared, in which their ancestry was described. But the absurd claims
+which had caused such discord were forever abolished, and court life
+thereafter proved smoother and easier in consequence of the iconoclastic
+act of the czar Theodore.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>BOYHOOD OF PETER THE GREAT.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Peter the Great</span>, grandson of the first emperor of the Romanof line, was
+a man of such extraordinary power of body and mind, such a remarkable
+combination of common sense, mental activity, advanced ideas, and
+determination to lift Russia to a high place among the nations, with
+cruelty, grossness, and infirmities of vice and passion, that his reign
+of forty-three years fills as large a place in Russian history as do the
+annals of all the preceding centuries, and the progress of Russia during
+this short period was greater than in any other epoch of three or four
+times its length.</p>
+
+<p>The character of the man showed in the boy, and while a mere child he
+began those steps of progress which were continued throughout his life.
+He had two brothers, both older than he, and sons of a different mother,
+so that the throne seemed far from his grasp. But Theodore, the oldest
+of the three, died after a brief reign, leaving no heirs to the throne.
+Ivan, the second son, was an imbecile, nearly blind, and subject to
+epileptic fits. The clergy and grandees, in consequence, looked upon
+Peter as the most promising successor to the throne. But he was still
+only a child, not yet ten years of age.</p>
+
+<p>The czar Alexis had left also several daughters;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> but in those days the
+fate of princesses of the blood was a harsh one. They were not permitted
+to marry, and were consigned to convents, where they knew nothing of
+what was passing in the busy world without. One of the daughters, Sophia
+by name, had escaped from this fate. At her earnest request she was
+taken from the convent and permitted to nurse her sickly brother
+Theodore.</p>
+
+<p>She was a woman of high intelligence, bold and ambitious by nature, and
+during her residence in court learned much of the politics of the empire
+and took some part in its government. After the death of Theodore she
+contrived to have herself named regent for her two brothers, Ivan being
+plainly unfit to rule, and Peter too young.</p>
+
+<p>There are many stories told about her, of which probably the half are
+not true. It is said that she kept her young brother at a distance from
+Moscow, where she surrounded him with ministers of evil, whose business
+it was to encourage him in riot and dissipation, to the end that he
+might become a moral monster, odious and insupportable to the nation at
+large. Such a course had been pursued with Ivan the Terrible, and to it
+was largely due his incredible iniquity.</p>
+
+<p>If Sophia had really any such purpose in view, she was playing with
+edge-tools. She quite mistook the character of her young brother, and
+forgot that the same rule may work differently in different cases. The
+steps taken to make the boy base, if really so intended, aided to make
+him great. His morals were corrupted, his health was impaired, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> his
+heart hardened by the excesses of his youth, but his removal from the
+palace atmosphere of flattery and effeminacy tended to make him
+self-reliant, while his free life in the country and the activity which
+it encouraged helped to develop the native energy of his character.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that Sophia had no such intention to corrupt the nature
+of the child, for she showed no ill will against him. It was apparently
+to his mother, rather than to his sister, that his residence in the
+country was due, and he was obliged to go frequently to Moscow, to take
+part in ceremonial affairs, while his name was used in all public
+documents, many of which he was required to sign.</p>
+
+<p>From early life the boy had shown himself active, intelligent, quick to
+learn, and full of curiosity. He was particularly interested in military
+affairs, and playing at soldiers was one of the leading diversions of
+his youth. Only a day or two after a great riot in Moscow, in which
+numbers of nobles were slaughtered, and in which the child had looked
+unmoved into the savage faces of the rioters, he sent to the arsenal for
+drums, banners, and arms. Uniforms and wooden cannon were supplied him,
+and on his eleventh birthday&mdash;in 1683&mdash;he was allowed to have some real
+guns, with which he fired salutes.</p>
+
+<p>From his country home at Preobrajensk messengers came almost daily to
+Moscow for powder, lead, and shot; small brass and iron cannon were
+supplied the boy, and drummer-boys, selected from the different
+regiments, were sent to him. Thus he was allowed to play at soldier to
+his heart's content.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p><p>A company was formed from the younger domestics of the place, fifty in
+number, the officers being sons of the boyars or lords. But these were
+required by the alert boy to pass through all the grades of the service,
+which he also did himself, serving successively as private, sergeant,
+lieutenant, and captain, and finally as colonel of the regiment which
+grew from this youthful company. Peter called his company "the guards,"
+but it was known in Moscow as the "pleasure company," or "troops for
+sport." In time, however, it grew into the Preobrajensky Guards, a
+celebrated regiment which is still kept up as the first regiment of the
+Russian Imperial Guard, and of which the emperor is always the colonel.
+Another company, formed on the same plan in an adjoining village, became
+the Semenofsky Regiment. From these rudiments grew the present Russian
+army.</p>
+
+<p>These military exercises soon ceased to be child's play to the active
+lad. He gave himself no rest from his prescribed duties, stood his watch
+in turn, shared in the labors of the camp, slept in the tents of his
+comrades, and partook of their fare. He used to lead his company on long
+marches, during which the strictest discipline was maintained, and the
+camps at night were guarded as in an enemy's country.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching his thirteenth year the boy took further steps in his
+military education, building a small fortress, whose remains are still
+preserved. This was constructed with great care, and took nearly a year
+to build. At the suggestion of a German officer it was named Pressburg,
+the name being given with much ceremony, Peter leading from Moscow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> a
+procession of most of the court officials and nobles to take part in the
+performance.</p>
+
+<p>These military sports were not enough for the active mind of the boy,
+who kept himself busy at a dozen labors. He used to hammer and forge in
+the blacksmith's shop, became an expert with the lathe, and learned the
+art of printing and binding books. He built himself a wheelbarrow and
+other articles which he needed, and at a later date it was said that he
+"knew excellently well fourteen trades."</p>
+
+<p>When in Moscow, Peter spent much of his time in the foreign quarter,
+joining his associates there in the beer, wine, and tobacco of which
+they were specially fond, and questioning them about a thousand subjects
+unknown to the Russians, thus acquiring a wide knowledge of men and
+affairs. He troubled himself little about rank or position, making a
+companion of any one, high or low, from whom anything could be learned,
+while any mechanical curiosity particularly attracted him.</p>
+
+<p>A sextant and astrolabe were brought him from France, of whose use no
+one could inform him, though he asked all whom he met. At length a Dutch
+merchant, Franz Timmermann by name, was brought him, who measured with
+the instrument the distance to a neighboring house.</p>
+
+<p>Peter was delighted, and eagerly asked to be taught how to use the
+instrument himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so easy," replied Timmermann; "you must first learn
+arithmetic and geometry."</p>
+
+<p>Here was a new incentive. The boy at once set to work, spending all his
+leisure time, day and night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> over these studies, to which he afterwards
+added geography and fortification. It was in this desultory way that his
+education was gained, no regular course of training being prescribed,
+and his strong self-will breaking through all family discipline.</p>
+
+<p>We may end here what we have to say about the boy's military activity.
+His army gradually grew until it numbered five thousand men, mainly
+foreigners, who were commanded by General Gordon, a Scotch officer.
+Lefort, a Swiss, who had become one of Peter's favorite companions, now
+undertook to raise an army of twelve thousand men. He succeeded in this,
+and unexpectedly found himself made general of this force.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, of the boy's activity in naval affairs that we must now
+speak. Timmermann had become one of his constant companions, and was
+always teaching him something new. One day in 1688, when Peter was
+sixteen years old, he was wandering about one of the country estates of
+the throne, near the village of Ismailovo. An old building in the
+flax-yard attracted his attention, and he asked one of the servants what
+it was.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a storehouse," the man said, "in which was put all the rubbish
+that was left after the death of Nikita Romanof, who used to live here."</p>
+
+<p>Peter at once, curious to see this "rubbish," had the doors opened, went
+in, and looked about. In one corner, bottom upward, lay a boat, very
+different in build from the flat-bottomed, square-sterned boats which
+were in use on the Russian rivers.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>"It is an English boat," said Timmermann.</p>
+
+<p>"But what is it good for? Is it better than our boats?" demanded Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. If you had sails for it, you would find that it would not only go
+with the wind, but against the wind."</p>
+
+<p>"Against the wind! Is that possible? How can it be possible?"</p>
+
+<p>With his usual impatience, the boy wanted to try it at once. But the
+boat proved to be too rotten for use. It would need to be repaired and
+tarred, and a mast and sails would have to be made.</p>
+
+<p>Where could these be had? Who could make them? Timmermann was able to
+tell him. Some thirty years before, a number of Dutch ship-carpenters
+had been brought from Holland and had built some vessels on the Volga
+River for the czar Alexis. These had been burned by a brigand, and
+Brandt, the builder, had returned to Moscow, where he still worked as a
+joiner. In those days it was easier to get into Russia than to get out
+again, foreigners who entered the land being held there as virtual
+prisoners. Even General Gordon tried in vain to get back to his native
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Old Brandt was found, looked over the boat, put it in order, and
+launched it on a neighboring stream. To Peter's surprise and delight, he
+saw the boat moving under sail up and down the river, turning to right
+and left in obedience to the helm. Greatly excited, he called on Brandt
+to stop, jumped in, and, under the old man's directions, began to manage
+the boat himself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p><p>But the river was too narrow and the water too shallow for easy
+sailing, and the energetic boy had the boat dragged overland to a large
+pond, where it went better, but still not to his satisfaction. Where was
+a better body of water? He was told that there was a large lake about
+fifty miles away, but that it would be easier to build a new boat than
+to drag the English boat that distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you do that?" asked the eager boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sire," said Brandt, "but I will need many things."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that does not matter at all," said Peter. "We can have anything."</p>
+
+<p>No time was lost. Brandt, with one of his old comrades and Timmermann,
+went to work at once in the woods bordering the lake, Peter working with
+them when he could get away from Moscow, where he was frequently needed.
+It took time. Timber had to be prepared, a hut built to live in, and a
+dock to launch the boats, which were built on a larger scale than the
+small English craft. Thus it was not until the following spring that the
+new boats were ready to launch.</p>
+
+<p>Peter meanwhile had been married. But the charms of his wife could not
+keep him from his beloved boats. Back he went, aided in completing and
+launching the new craft, and took such delight in sailing them about the
+lake that he could hardly be induced to return to Moscow for important
+duties.</p>
+
+<p>In this humble way began the Russian navy, which had grown to large
+proportions before Peter died. The little English boat, which some think
+was one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> sent by Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, has ever since
+Peter's time been known as the "Grand-sire of the Russian navy." It is
+kept with the greatest care in a small brick building within the
+fortress at St. Petersburg, and was one of the principal objects of
+interest in the great parade in that city in 1870 on the two hundredth
+anniversary of Peter's birth.</p>
+
+<p>It will suffice to say, in conclusion, that shortly after these events
+Peter became the reigning czar, and turned from sport to earnest. Sophia
+had enjoyed so long the pleasure of ruling that her ambition grew with
+its exercise, and she sought to retain her position as long as possible.
+It is even said that she laid a plot to assassinate Peter, so that only
+the feeble Ivan should be left. The boy, told that assassins were
+seeking him, fled for his life. His fright seems to have been
+groundless, but it made him an undying enemy of his sister. The affair
+ended in the bulk of the nobility and soldiery turning to his side and
+in Sophia being obliged to leave the throne for a convent, where she
+spent the remainder of her life in the misery of strict seclusion.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image7.jpg" width="400" height="528" alt="ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>CARPENTER PETER OF ZAANDAM.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the banks of the river Zaan, about five miles from Amsterdam, lies
+the picturesque little town of Zaandam, with its cottages of blue,
+green, and pink, half hidden among the trees, while a multitude of
+windmills surround the town like so many monuments to thrift and
+enterprise. Here, two centuries ago, ship-building was conducted on a
+great scale, the timber being sawed by windmill power, while the workmen
+were so numerous that a vessel was often on the sea in five weeks after
+the keel had been laid.</p>
+
+<p>To this place, in August, 1697, came a workman of foreign birth, who
+found humble quarters in a small frame hut and entered himself as a
+ship-carpenter at the wharf of Lynst Rogge. There was nothing specially
+noticeable about the stranger, who wore a workman's dress and a
+tarpaulin hat. But with him were some comrades dressed in the strange
+garb of Russia, who attracted the attention of the people.</p>
+
+<p>As for the new workman, he did not long escape curious looks. The rumor
+had got about that no less a personage than the Czar of Russia was in
+the town, and it began to be suspected that this unobtrusive stranger
+might be the man, so that it was not long before inquisitive eyes began
+to follow him wherever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> he went. The rumor soon brought large crowds
+from Amsterdam, whose presence made the streets of the small Dutch town
+anything but comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>It was well known that Peter I., Czar of Russia, was travelling through
+the nations of the West. A large embassy, composed of several hundred
+people, some of them the highest officials of the court, had left the
+Muscovite kingdom, and visited the several courts and large cities on
+their route, being everywhere received with the greatest distinction.
+But the czar did not appear openly among them. He was there in disguise,
+but had given strict orders that his presence should not be revealed. He
+hated crowds, hated adulation, and wished only to be let alone to see
+and learn all he could. So while the ambassadors were receiving the
+highest honors of kingdoms and courts and bowing and parading to their
+hearts' content, the czar kept himself in the background as an amused
+spectator, thought by most observers to be one of the servants of the
+gorgeous train.</p>
+
+<p>And thus he reached Zaandam, which he had been told was the best place
+to learn how ships were built. Here he saw fishing in the river one of
+his old acquaintances of the foreign quarter of Moscow, a smith named
+Gerrit Kist. Calling him from his rod, and binding him to secrecy, he
+told him why he had come to Holland, and insisted on taking up quarters
+in his house. This house, a small frame hut, is now preserved as a
+sacred object, enclosed within a brick building, and has long been a
+place of pilgrimage even for royal travellers. Emperors and kings have
+bent their lofty heads to enter its low door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p><p>Yet Peter lived in Zaandam only a week, and during that week did little
+work at ship-building, spending much of his time in rowing about among
+the shipping, and visiting most of the factories and mills, at one of
+which he made a sheet of paper with his own royal hands.</p>
+
+<p>One day the disguised emperor met with an adventure. He had bought a
+hatful of plums, and was eating them in the most plebeian fashion as he
+walked along the street, when he met a crowd of boys. He shared his
+fruit with some of these, but those to whom he refused to give plums
+began to follow him with boyish reviling, and when he laughed at them
+they took to pelting him with mud and stones. Here was a situation for
+an emperor away from home. The Czar of all the Russias had to take to
+his heels and run for refuge to the Three Swans Inn, where he sent for
+the burgomaster of the town, told who he was, and demanded aid and
+relief. At least we may suppose so, for an edict was soon issued
+threatening punishment to all who should insult "distinguished persons
+who wished to remain unknown."</p>
+
+<p>The end of Peter's stay soon came. A man in Zaandam had received a
+letter from his son in Moscow, saying that the czar was with the great
+Russian embassy, and describing him so closely that he could no longer
+remain unknown. This letter was seen by Pomp, the barber of Zaandam, and
+when Peter came into his place with his Russian comrades he at once knew
+him from the description and spread the news.</p>
+
+<p>From that time the czar had no rest. Wherever he went he was followed by
+crowds of curious people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> They grew so annoying that at length he
+leaped in anger from his boat and gave one of the most forward of his
+persecutors a sharp cuff on the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo, Marsje!" cried the crowd in delight: "you are made a knight."</p>
+
+<p>The czar rushed angrily to an inn, where he shut himself up out of
+sight. The next day a large ship was to be moved across the dike by
+means of capstans and rollers, a difficult operation, in which Peter
+took deep interest. A place was reserved for him to see it, but the
+crowd became so great as to drive back the guards, break down the
+railings, and half fill the reserved space. Peter, seeing this, refused
+to leave his house. The burgomaster and other high officials begged him
+to come, but the most he could be got to do was to thrust his head out
+of the door and observe the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Te veel volks, te veel volks</i>" ("too many people"), he bluntly cried,
+and refused to budge.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was Sunday, and all Amsterdam seemed to have come to
+Zaandam to see its distinguished guest. He escaped them by fleeing to
+Amsterdam. Getting to a yacht he had bought, and to which he had fitted
+a bowsprit with his own hands, he put to sea, giving no heed to warnings
+of danger from the furious wind that was blowing. Three hours after he
+reached Amsterdam, where his ambassadors then were, and where they were
+to have a formal reception the next day.</p>
+
+<p>Receptions were well enough for ambassadors, but they were idle flummery
+to the czar, who had come to see, not to be seen, and who did his best
+to keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> out of sight. He visited the fine town hall, inspected the
+docks, saw a comedy and a ballet, consented to sit through a great
+dinner, witnessed a splendid display of fireworks, and, most interesting
+to him of all, was entertained with a great naval sham fight, which
+lasted a whole day.</p>
+
+<p>Zaandam has the credit of having been the scene of Peter the Great's
+labor as a shipwright, but it was really at Amsterdam that his life as a
+workman was passed. At his request he was given the privilege of working
+at the docks of the East India Company, a house being assigned him
+within the enclosure where he could dwell undisturbed, free from the
+curiosity of crowds. As a mark of respect it was determined to begin the
+construction of a new frigate, one hundred feet long, so that the
+distinguished workman might see the whole process of the building of a
+ship. With his usual impetuosity Peter wished to begin work immediately,
+and could hardly be induced to wait for the fireworks to burn themselves
+out. Then he set out for Zaandam on his yacht to fetch his tools, and
+the next day, August 30, presented himself as a workman at the East
+India Company's wharf.</p>
+
+<p>For more than four months, with occasional breaks, Peter worked
+diligently as a ship-carpenter, ten of his Russian companions&mdash;probably
+much against their will&mdash;working at the wharf with him. He was known
+simply as Baas Peter (Carpenter Peter), and, while sitting on a log at
+rest, with his hatchet between his knees, was willing to talk with any
+one who addressed him by this name, but had no answer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> for those who
+called him Sire or Your Majesty. Others of the Russians were put to work
+elsewhere, to study the construction of masts, blocks, sails, etc., some
+of them were entered as sailors before the mast, and Prince Alexander of
+Imeritia went to the Hague to study artillery. None of them was allowed
+"to take his ease at his inn."</p>
+
+<p>Peter insisted on being treated as a common workman, and would not
+permit any difference to be made between him and his fellow-laborers. He
+also demanded the usual wages for his work. On one occasion, when the
+Earl of Portland and another nobleman came to the yard to have a sight
+of him, the overseer, to indicate him, called out, "Carpenter Peter of
+Zaandam, why don't you help your comrades?" Without a word, Peter put
+his shoulders under a log which several men were carrying, and helped to
+lift it to its place.</p>
+
+<p>His evenings were spent in studying the theory of ship-building, and his
+spare hours were fully occupied in observation. He visited everything
+worth seeing, factories, museums, cabinets of coins, theatres,
+hospitals, etc., constantly making shrewd remarks and inquiries, and
+soon becoming known from his quick questions, "What is that for? How
+does that work? That will I see."</p>
+
+<p>He went to Zaandam to see the Greenland whaling fleet, visited the
+celebrated botanical garden with the great Boerhaave, studied the
+microscope at Delft under Leuwenhoek, became intimate with the military
+engineer Coehorn, talked with Schynvoet of architecture, and learned to
+etch from Schonebeck.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> An impression of a plate made by him, of
+Christianity victorious over Islam, is still extant.</p>
+
+<p>He made himself familiar with Dutch home life, mingled with the
+merchants engaged in the Russian trade, went to the Botermarkt every
+market-day, and took lessons from a travelling dentist, experimenting on
+his own servants and suite, probably not much to their enjoyment. He
+mended his own clothes, learned enough of cobbling to make himself a
+pair of slippers, and, in short, was insatiable in his search for
+information of every available kind.</p>
+
+<p>His work on the frigate whose keel he had helped to lay was continued
+until it was launched. It was well built, and for many years proved a
+good and useful ship, braving the perils of the seas in the East India
+trade. But with all this the imperial carpenter was not satisfied. The
+Dutch methods did not please him. The ship-masters seemed to work
+without rules other than the "rule of thumb," having no theory of
+ship-building from which the best proportions of a vessel could be
+deduced.</p>
+
+<p>Learning that things were ordered differently in English ship-yards,
+that there work was done by rule and precept, Peter sent an order to the
+Russian docks not to allow the Dutch shipwrights to work as they
+pleased, but to put them under Danish or English overseers. For himself,
+he resolved to go to England and follow up his studies there. King
+William had sent him a warm invitation and presented him a splendid
+yacht, light, beautifully proportioned, and armed with twenty brass
+cannon. Delighted with the present, he sailed in it to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>England,
+escorted by an English fleet, and in London found an abiding-place in a
+house which a few years before had been the refuge of William Penn when
+charged with treason. Here he slept in a small room with four or five
+companions, and when the King of England came to visit him, received his
+fellow-monarch in his shirt-sleeves. The air of the room was so bad
+that, though the weather was very cold, William insisted on a window
+being raised.</p>
+
+<p>In England the czar, though managing to see much outside the ship-yards,
+worked steadily at Deptford for several months, leaving only when he had
+gained all the special knowledge which he could obtain. His admiration
+for the English ship-builders was high, he afterwards saying that but
+for his journey to England he would have always remained a bungler.
+While here he engaged many men to take service in Russia, shipwrights,
+engineers, and others; he also engaged numerous officers for his navy
+from Holland, several French surgeons, and various persons of other
+nationality, the whole numbering from six to eight hundred skilled
+artisans and professional experts. To raise money for their advance
+payment he sold the monopoly of the Russian tobacco trade for twenty
+thousand pounds. Sixty years before, his grandfather Michael had
+forbidden the use of tobacco in Russia under pain of death, and the
+prejudice against it was still strong. But in spite of this the use of
+tobacco was rapidly spreading, and Peter thus threw down the bars.</p>
+
+<p>Great numbers of anecdotes are afloat about Peter's doings in Holland
+and England,&mdash;many of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> them, doubtless, invented. The sight of a great
+monarch going about in workman's clothes and laboring like a common
+ship-carpenter was apt to aid the imagination of story-tellers and give
+rise to numerous tales with little fact to sustain them.</p>
+
+<p>In May, 1698, Peter left England and proceeded to Amsterdam, where his
+embassy had remained, often in great distress about him, for the winter
+was cold and stormy and at one time no news was received from him for a
+month. From Amsterdam he made his way to Vienna, whence he proposed to
+go to Venice and Rome, but was prevented by disturbing news from Moscow,
+which turned his steps homeward. Here he was to show a new phase of his
+varied character, as will be seen in the following tale.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">History</span> presents us with four instances of an imperial soldiery who took
+the power into their own hands and for a time ruled as the tyrants of a
+nation. These were the Pretorian Guards of Rome, the Mamelukes of Egypt,
+the Janissaries of Turkey, and the Strelitz of Russia. Of these, the
+Pretorian Guards remained pre-eminent, and made emperors at their will.
+The other three came to a terrible end. History elsewhere records the
+tragic fate of the Mamelukes and the Janissaries: we are here concerned
+only with that of the Strelitz corps of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>The Strelitz were the first regular military force of Russia, a
+permanent militia of fusileers, formed during the early reign of Ivan
+the Terrible, and themselves in time becoming a terror to the nation.
+The first serious outbreak of this dangerous civic guard was on the
+nomination of Peter I. to the throne of the czar. They did not dream
+then of the terrible revenge which this despised boy would take upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Two days after the funeral of the czar Theodore the insurrection began,
+the Strelitz marching in an armed body to the Kremlin, where they
+accused nine of their colonels of defrauding them of their pay. The
+frightened ministers hastened to dismiss these officers, but this did
+not satisfy the savage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> soldiery, who insisted on their being delivered
+into their hands. This done, the unfortunate officers were sentenced to
+be scourged, some of them by that fearful Russian whip called the knout.</p>
+
+<p>Their success in this outbreak led the Strelitz to greater outrages. The
+tiger in their savage natures was let loose, and only blood could
+appease its rage. Marching to the Kremlin, they declared that the late
+czar had been poisoned by his doctor, and demanded the death of all
+those in the plot. Breaking into the palace, they seized two of the
+suspected princes and flung them from the windows, to be received upon
+the pikes of the soldiers in the street below. The next victim was one
+of the Narishkins, the uncles of Peter the Great. He was massacred in
+the same brutal manner and his bleeding body dragged through the
+streets. Three of the proscribed nobles had fled for sanctuary to a
+church, but were torn from the altar, stripped of their clothing, and
+cut to pieces with knives.</p>
+
+<p>The next victim was a friend and favorite of the Strelitz, who was
+killed under the belief that he was one of the Narishkins. Discovering
+their error, the assassins carried the mangled body of the young
+nobleman to the house of his father for interment. The old man, timid by
+nature, did not dare to complain of the savage act, and even rewarded
+them for bringing him the body of his son. For this weakness he was
+bitterly reproached by his wife and daughters and the weeping wife of
+the victim.</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do?" pleaded the helpless father; "let us wait for an
+opportunity to be revenged."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p><p>A revengeful servant overheard these words and repeated them to the
+soldiers. In a sudden fury the savages returned, dragged the old man
+from the room by the hair of his head, and cut his throat at his own
+door.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile some of the Strelitz, seeking the Dutch physician Vongad, who
+had attended the dying czar and was accused of poisoning him, met his
+son and asked where his father was. "I do not know," replied the
+trembling youth. His ignorance was instantly punished with death.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes a German physician fell in their way. "You are a
+doctor," they cried. "If you have not poisoned our master Theodore, you
+have poisoned others. You deserve death." And in a moment the unlucky
+doctor fell a victim to their blind rage.</p>
+
+<p>The Dutch physician was at length discovered and dragged to the palace.
+Here the princesses begged hard for his life, declaring that he was a
+skilful doctor and a good man and had worked hard to save their
+brother's life. They answered that he deserved to die as a sorcerer as
+well as a physician, for they had found the skeleton of a toad and the
+skin of a snake in his cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>The next victim demanded was Ivan Narishkin, who they were sure was
+somewhere concealed in the palace. Not finding him, they threatened to
+burn down the building unless he were delivered into their hands. At
+this terrifying threat the young man was taken from his place of
+concealment and brought to them by the patriarch, who held in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> hands
+an image of the Virgin Mary which was said to have performed miracles.
+The princesses surrounded the victim, and, kneeling to the soldiers,
+prayed with tears for his life.</p>
+
+<p>All their supplications and the demands of the venerable patriarch were
+without effect on the savage soldiery, who dragged their captives to the
+bottom of the stairway, went through the forms of a mock trial, and
+condemned them to the torture. They were sentenced to be cut to pieces,
+a form of punishment to which parricides are condemned in China and
+Tartary. This tragedy went on until all the proscribed on whom they
+could lay their hands had perished and Sophia felt secure in her power.</p>
+
+<p>In the end, Ivan and Peter were declared joint sovereigns (1682), and
+their sister Sophia was made regent. The acts of the Strelitz were
+approved and they rewarded, the estates of their victims were
+confiscated in their favor, and a monument was erected on which the
+names of the victims were inscribed as traitors to their country.</p>
+
+<p>The Strelitz had learned their power, and took frequent occasion to
+exercise it. Twice again they broke out in revolt during the regency of
+Sophia. After the accession of Peter their hostility continued. He had
+sent them to fight on the frontiers. He had supplanted them with
+regiments drilled in the European manner. He had organized a corps of
+twelve thousand foreigners and heretics. He had ordered the construction
+of a fleet of a hundred vessels, which would add to the weight of taxes
+and bring more foreigners into the country. And he proposed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> leave
+Russia, to journey in the lands of the heretics, and to bring back to
+their sacred land the customs of profane Europe.</p>
+
+<p>All this was too much for the leaders of the Strelitz, who represented
+old Russia, as Peter represented new. They resolved to sacrifice the
+czar to their rage. Tradition tells the following story, which, though
+probably not true, is at least interesting. Two leaders of the Strelitz
+laid a plot to start a fire at night, feeling sure that Peter, with his
+usual activity, would hasten to the scene. In the confusion attending
+the fire they meant to murder him, and then to massacre all the
+foreigners whom he had introduced into Moscow.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image8.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT. MOSCOW." title="" />
+<span class="caption">DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT. MOSCOW.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The time fixed for the consummation of this plot was at hand. A banquet
+was held, at which the principal conspirators assembled, and where they
+sought in deep potations the courage necessary for their murderous work.
+Unfortunately for them, liquor does not act on all alike. While usually
+giving boldness, it sometimes produces timidity. Two of the villains
+lost their courage through their potations, left the room on some
+pretext, promising to return in time, and hastened to the czar with the
+story of the plot.</p>
+
+<p>Peter knew not the meaning of the words timidity and procrastination.
+His plans were instantly laid. The time fixed for the conflagration was
+midnight. He gave orders that the hall in which the conspirators were
+assembled should be surrounded exactly at eleven. Soon after, thinking
+that the hour had come, he sought the place alone and boldly entered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+the room, fully expecting to find the conspirators in the hands of his
+guards.</p>
+
+<p>To his consternation, not a guard was present, and he found himself
+alone and unarmed in the midst of a furious band who were just swearing
+to compass his destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The situation was a critical one. The conspirators, dismayed at this
+unlooked-for visit, rose in confusion. Peter was furious at his guards
+for having exposed him to this peril, but instantly perceived that there
+was only one course for him to pursue. He advanced among the throng of
+traitors with a countenance that showed no trace of his emotions, and
+pleasantly remarked,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the light in your house while passing, and, thinking that you
+must be having a gay time together, I have come in to share your
+pleasure and drain a cup with you."</p>
+
+<p>Then, seating himself at the table, he filled a cup and drank to his
+would-be assassins, who, on their feet about him, could not avoid
+responding to the toast and drinking his health.</p>
+
+<p>But this state of affairs did not long continue. The courage of the
+conspirators returned, and they began to exchange looks and signs. The
+opportunity had fallen into their hands; now was the time to avail
+themselves of it. One of them leaned over to Sukanim, one of their
+leaders, and said, in a low tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Brother, it is time."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," said Sukanim, hesitating at the critical moment.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant Peter heard the footsteps of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> guards outside, and,
+starting to his feet, knocked the leader of the assassins down by a
+violent blow in his face, exclaiming,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If it is not yet time for you, scoundrel, it is for me."</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment the guards entered the room, and the conspirators,
+panic-stricken by the sight, fell on their knees and begged for pardon.</p>
+
+<p>"Chain them!" said the czar, in a terrible voice.</p>
+
+<p>Turning then to the commander of the guards, he struck him and accused
+him of having disobeyed orders. But the officer proving to him that the
+hour fixed had just arrived, the czar, in sudden remorse at his haste,
+clasped him in his arms, kissed him on the forehead, proclaimed his
+fidelity, and gave the traitors into his charge.</p>
+
+<p>And now Peter showed the savage which lay within him under the thin
+veneer of civilization. The conspirators were put to death with the
+cruellest of tortures, and, to complete the act of barbarity, their
+heads were exposed on the summit of a column with their limbs arranged
+around them as ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied that this fearful example would keep Russia tranquil during
+his absence, Peter set out on his journey, visiting most of the
+countries of Western Europe. He had reached Vienna, and was on the point
+of setting out for Venice, when word was brought him from Russia that
+the Strelitz had broken out in open insurrection and were marching from
+their posts on the frontier upon Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>The czar at once left Vienna and journeyed with all possible speed to
+Russia, reaching Moscow in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>September, 1698. His appearance took all by
+surprise, for none knew that he had yet left Austria.</p>
+
+<p>He came too late to suppress the insurrection. That had been already
+done by General Gordon, who, marching in all haste, had met the rebels
+about thirty miles from Moscow and called on them to surrender. As they
+refused and attacked the troops, he opened on them with cannon, put them
+to flight, and of the survivors took captive about two thousand. These
+were decimated on the spot, and the remainder imprisoned.</p>
+
+<p>This was punishment enough for a soldier, but not enough for an
+autocrat, whose mind was haunted by dark suspicions, and who looked upon
+the outbreak as a plot to dethrone him and to call his sister Sophia to
+the throne. In his treatment of the prisoners the spirit of the monster
+Ivan IV. seems to have entered into his soul, and the cruelty shown,
+while common enough in old-time Russia, is revolting to the modern mind.</p>
+
+<p>The trial was dragged out through six weeks, with daily torture of some
+of the accused, under the eyes of the czar himself, who sought to force
+from them a confession that Sophia had been concerned in the outbreak.
+The wives of the prisoners, all the women servants of the princesses,
+even poor beggars who lived on their charity, were examined under
+torture. The princesses themselves, Peter's sisters, were questioned by
+the czar, though he did not go so far as to torture them. Yet with all
+this nothing was discovered. There was not a word to connect Sophia with
+the revolt.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p><p>The trial over, the executions began. Of the prisoners, some were
+hanged, some beheaded, others broken on the wheel. It is said that those
+beheaded were made to kneel in rows of fifty before trunks of trees laid
+on the ground, and that Peter compelled his courtiers and nobles to act
+as executioners, Mentchikof specially distinguishing himself in this
+work of slaughter. It is even asserted that the czar wielded the axe
+himself, though of this there is some doubt. The opinion grew among the
+people that neither Peter nor Prince Ramodanofsky, his cruel viceroy,
+could sleep until they had tasted blood, and a letter from the prince
+contains the following lurid sentence: "<i>I am always washing myself in
+blood.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The headless bodies of the dead were left where they had fallen. The
+long Russian winter was just beginning, and for five months they lay
+unburied, a frightful spectacle for the eyes of the citizens of Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>Of those hanged, nearly two hundred were left depending from a large
+square gallows in front of the cell of Sophia at the convent in which
+she was confined, and with a horrible refinement of cruelty three of
+these bodies were so placed as to hang all winter under her very window,
+one of them holding in his hand a folded paper to represent a petition
+for her aid.</p>
+
+<p>The six regiments of Strelitz still on the frontier showed signs of a
+similar outbreak, but the news of the executions taught them that it was
+safest to keep quiet. But many of them were brought in chains to Moscow
+and punished for their intentions. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>Various stories are told of Peter's
+cruelty in connection with these executions. One is that he beheaded
+eighty with his own hand, Plestchef, one of his boyars, holding them by
+the hair. Another story, told by M. Printz, the Prussian ambassador,
+says that at an entertainment given him by the czar, Peter, when drunk,
+had twenty rebels brought in from the prisons, whom he beheaded in quick
+succession, drinking a bumper after each blow, the whole concluding
+within the hour. He even asked the ambassador to try his skill in the
+same way. It may be said here, however, that these stories rest upon
+very poor evidence, and that anecdote-makers have painted Peter in
+blacker colors than he deserves.</p>
+
+<p>In the end the corps of the Strelitz was abolished, their houses and
+lands in Moscow were taken from the survivors, and all were exiled into
+the country, where they became simple villagers.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> return of Peter the Great from his European journey was marked by
+other events than his cruel revenge upon the rebellious Strelitz. That
+had affected only a few thousand people; the reforms he sought to
+introduce affected the nation at large. The Russians were then more
+Oriental than European in style, wearing the long caftan or robe of
+Persia and Turkey, which descended to their heels, while their beards
+were like those of the patriarchs, the man deeming himself most in honor
+who had the longest and fullest crop of hair upon his face.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image9.jpg" width="400" height="684" alt="PETER THE GREAT." title="" />
+<span class="caption">PETER THE GREAT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>To Peter, fresh from the West, and strongly imbued with European views,
+all this was ridiculous, if not abominable. He determined to reform it
+all, and at once set to work in his impetuous way, which could not brook
+a day's delay, to deprive the Russians of their beards and the tails of
+their coats. He had scarcely arrived before the boyars and leading
+citizens of Moscow, who flocked to congratulate him on his return, were
+taken aback by the edict that whiskers were condemned, and that the
+razor must be set at work without delay upon their honorable chins.</p>
+
+<p>This edict was like a thunder-clap from a clear sky. The Russians
+admired and revered their beards.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> They were time-honored and sacred in
+their eyes. To lose them was like losing their family trees and patents
+of nobility. But Peter was without reverence for the past, and his word
+was law. He had ordered a mowing and reaping of hair, and the harvest
+must be made, or worse might come. General Shein, commander-in-chief of
+the army, was the first to yield to the imperative edict and submit his
+venerable beard to the indignity of the razor's edge. The old age seemed
+past and the new age come when Shein walked shamefacedly into court with
+a clean chin.</p>
+
+<p>The example thus set was quickly followed. Beards were tabooed within
+the precincts of the court. All shared the same fate, none being left to
+laugh at the rest. The patriarch, it is true, was exempted, through awe
+for his high office in the Church, while reverence for advanced years
+reprieved Prince Tcherkasy, and Tikhon Streshnef was excused out of
+honor for his services as guardian of the czaritza. Every one else
+within the court had to submit to the razor's fatal edge or feel the
+czar's more fatal displeasure, and beards fell like "autumnal leaves
+that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."</p>
+
+<p>An observer speaks as follows concerning a feast given by General Shein:
+"A crowd of boyars, scribes, and military officers almost incredible was
+assembled there, and among them were several common sailors, with whom
+the czar repeatedly mixed, divided apples, and even honored one of them
+by calling him his brother. A salvo of twenty-five guns marked each
+toast. Nor could the irksome offices of the barber<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> check the
+festivities of the day, though it was well known he was enacting the
+part of jester by appointment at the czar's court. It was of evil omen
+to make show of reluctance as the razor approached the chin, and
+hesitation was to be forthwith punished with a box on the ears. In this
+way, between mirth and the wine-cup, many were admonished by this insane
+ridicule to abandon the olden guise."</p>
+
+<p>For Peter to shave was easy, as he had little beard and a very thin
+moustache. But by the old-fashioned Russian of his day the beard was
+cherished as the Turk now cherishes his hirsute symbol of dignity or the
+Chinaman his long-drawn-out queue. Shortly after Peter came to the
+throne the patriarch Adrian had delivered himself in words of thunder
+against all who were so unholy and heretical as to cut or shave their
+beards, a God-given ornament, which had been worn by prophets and
+apostles and by Christ himself. Only heretics, apostates,
+idol-worshippers, and image-breakers among monarchs had forced their
+subjects to shave, he declared, while all the great and good emperors
+had indicated their piety in the length of their beards.</p>
+
+<p>To Peter, on the contrary, the beard was the symbol of barbarity. He was
+not content to say that his subjects might shave, he decreed that they
+<i>must</i> shave. It began half in jest, it was continued in solid earnest.
+He could not well execute the non-shavers, or cut off the heads of those
+who declined to cut off their beards, but he could fine them, and he
+did. The order was sent forth that all Russians, with the exception of
+the clergy, should shave. Those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> who preferred to keep their beards
+could do so by paying a yearly tax into the public treasury. This was
+fixed at a kopeck (one penny) for peasants, but for the higher classes
+varied from thirty to a hundred rubles (from sixty dollars to two
+hundred dollars). The merchants, being at once the richest and most
+conservative class, paid the highest tax. Every one who paid the tax was
+given a bronze token, which had to be worn about the neck and renewed
+every year.</p>
+
+<p>The czar would allow no one to be about him who did not shave, and many
+submitted through "terror of having their beards (in a merry humor)
+pulled out by the roots, or taken so rough off that some of the skin
+went with them." Many of those who shaved continued to do reverence to
+their beards by carrying them within their bosoms as sacred objects, to
+be buried in their graves, in order that a just account might be
+rendered to St. Nicholas when they should come to the next world.</p>
+
+<p>The ukase against the beard was soon followed by one against the caftan,
+or long cloak, the old Russian dress. The czar and the leading officers
+of his embassy set the example of wearing the German dress, and he cut
+off, with his own hands, the long sleeves of some of his officers.
+"Those things are in your way," he would say. "You are safe nowhere with
+them. At one moment you upset a glass, then you forgetfully dip them in
+the sauce. Get gaiters made of them."</p>
+
+<p>On January 14, 1700, a decree was issued commanding all courtiers and
+officials throughout the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> empire to wear the foreign dress. This decree
+had to be frequently repeated, and models of the clothing exposed. It is
+said that patterns of the garments and copies of the decrees were hung
+up together at the gates of the towns, while all who disobeyed the order
+were compelled to pay a fine. Those who yielded were obliged "to kneel
+down at the gates of the city and have their coats cut off just even
+with the ground," the part that lay on the ground as they kneeled being
+condemned to suffer by the shears. "Being done with a good humor, it
+occasioned mirth among the people, and soon broke the custom of their
+wearing long coats, especially in places near Moscow and those towns
+wherever the czar came."</p>
+
+<p>This demand did not apply to the peasantry, and was therefore more
+easily executed. Even the women were required to change their Russian
+robes for foreign fashions. Peter's sisters set the example, which was
+quickly followed, the women showing themselves much less conservative
+than the men in the adoption of new styles of dress.</p>
+
+<p>The reform did not end here. Decrees were issued against the high
+Russian boots, against the use of the Russian saddle, and even against
+the long Russian knife. Peter seemed to be infected with a passion for
+reform, and almost everything Russian was ordered to give way before the
+influx of Western modes. Western ideas did not come with them. To change
+the dress does not change the thoughts, and it does not civilize a man
+to shave his chin. Though outwardly conforming to the advanced fashions
+of the West, inwardly the Russians continued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> to conform to the
+unprogressive conceptions of the East.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said that these changes did not come to stay. They were too
+revolutionary to take deep root. There is no disputing the fact that a
+coat down to the heels is more comfortable in a cold climate than one
+ending at the knees, and is likely to be worn in preference. Students in
+Russia to-day wear the red shirt, the loose trousers tucked into the
+high boots, and the sleeveless caftan of the peasant, to show that they
+are Slavs in feeling, while the old Russian costume is the regulation
+court dress for ladies on occasions of state.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot here name the host of other reforms which Peter introduced.
+The army was dressed and organized in the fashion of the West. A navy
+was rapidly built, and before many years Russia was winning victories at
+sea. Peter had not worked at Amsterdam and Deptford in vain. The money
+of the country was reorganized, and new coins were issued. The year,
+which had always begun in Russia on September 1, was now ordered to
+begin on January 1, the first new year on the new system, January 1,
+1700, being introduced with impressive ceremonies. Up to this time the
+Russians had counted their year from the supposed date of creation. They
+were now ordered to date their chronology from the birth of Christ, the
+first year of the new era being dated 1700 instead of 7208. Unluckily,
+the Gregorian calendar was not at the same time introduced, and Russia
+still clings to the old style, so that each date in that country is
+twelve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> days behind the same date in the rest of the Christian world.</p>
+
+<p>Another reform of an important character was introduced. Peter had
+observed the system of local self-government in other countries, and
+resolved to have something like it in his realm. In Little Russia the
+people already had the right of electing their local officials. A
+similar system was extended to the whole empire, the merchants in the
+towns being permitted to choose good and honest men, who formed a
+council which had general charge of municipal affairs. Where bribery and
+corruption were discovered among these officials the knout and exile
+were applied as inducements to honesty in office. Even death was
+threatened; yet bribery went on. Honesty in office cannot be made to
+order, even by a czar.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the romantic characters of history none have attained higher
+celebrity than the hero of our present tale, whose remarkable adventure,
+often told in story, has been made immortal in Lord Byron's famous poem
+of "Mazeppa." Those who wish to read it in all its dramatic intensity
+must apply to the poem. Here it can only be given in plain prose.</p>
+
+<p>Mazeppa was a scion of a poor but noble Polish family, and became, while
+quite young, a page at the court of John Casimir, King of Poland. There
+he remained until he reached manhood, when he returned to the vicinity
+of his birth. And now occurred the striking event on which the fame of
+our hero rests. The court-reared young man is said to have engaged in an
+intrigue with a Polish lady of high rank, or at least was suspected by
+her jealous husband of having injured him in his honor.</p>
+
+<p>Bent upon a revenge suitable to the barbarous ideas of that age, the
+furious nobleman had the young man seized, cruelly scourged, and in the
+end stripped naked and firmly bound upon the back of an untamed horse of
+the steppes. The wild animal, terrified by the strange burden upon its
+back, was then set free on the borders of its native wilds of the
+Ukraine, and, uncontrolled by bit or rein, galloped madly for miles upon
+miles through forest and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> over plain, until, exhausted by the violence
+of its flight, it halted in its wild career. For a dramatic rendering of
+this frightful ride our readers must be referred to Byron's glowing
+verse.</p>
+
+<p>The savage Polish lord had not dreamed that his victim would escape
+alive, but fortune favored the poor youth. He was found, still fettered
+to the animal's back, insensible and half dead, by some Cossack
+peasants, who rescued him from his fearful situation, took him to their
+hut, and eventually restored him to animation.</p>
+
+<p>Mazeppa was well educated and fully versed in the art of war of that
+day. He made his home with his new friends, to whom his courage,
+agility, and sagacity proved such warm recommendations that he soon
+became highly popular among the Cossack clans. He was appointed
+secretary and adjutant to Samilovitch, the hetman or chief of the
+Cossacks, and on the disgrace and exile of this chief in 1687 Mazeppa
+succeeded him as leader of the tribe. He distinguished himself
+particularly in the war waged by the army of the Princess Sophia against
+the Turks and Tartars of the Crimea, in which Mazeppa led his Cossack
+followers with the greatest courage and skill.</p>
+
+<p>On the return of the army to Moscow, Prince Galitzin, its leader,
+brought into the capital a strong force of Cossacks, with Mazeppa at
+their head. It was the first time the Cossacks had been allowed to enter
+Moscow, and their presence gave great offence. It was supposed to be a
+part of the plot of Sophia to dethrone her young brother and seize the
+throne for herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> It was known that they would execute to the full
+any orders given them by their chief; but their motions were so
+restricted by the indignant people that the ambitious woman, if she
+entertained such a design, found herself unable to employ them in it.</p>
+
+<p>The daring hetman of the Cossacks became afterwards a cherished friend
+of Peter the Great, who conferred on him the title of prince, and
+severely punished those who accused him of conspiring with the enemies
+of Russia. Having the fullest confidence in his good faith, Peter
+banished or executed his foes as liars and traitors. Yet they seem to
+have been the true men and Mazeppa the traitor, for at length, when
+sixty-four years of age, he threw off allegiance to Russia and became an
+ally of the Swedish enemies of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>The fiery and ungovernable temper of Peter is said to have been the
+cause of this. The story goes that one day, when Mazeppa was visiting
+the Russian court, and was at table with the czar, Peter complained to
+him of the lawless character of the Cossacks, and proposed that Mazeppa
+should seek to bring them under better control by a system of
+organization and discipline.</p>
+
+<p>The chief replied that such measures would never succeed. The Cossacks
+were so fierce and uncontrollable by nature, he said, and so fixed in
+their irregular habits of warfare, that it would be impossible to get
+them to submit to military discipline, and they must continue to fight
+in their old, wild way.</p>
+
+<p>These words were like fire to flax. Peter, who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> never could bear the
+least opposition to any of his plans or projects, and was accustomed to
+have everybody timidly agree with him, broke into a furious rage at this
+contradiction, and visited his sudden wrath on Mazeppa, as usual, in the
+most violent language. He was an enemy and a traitor, who deserved to be
+and should be impaled alive, roared the furious czar, not meaning a
+tithe of what he said, but saying enough to turn the high-spirited chief
+from a friend to a foe.</p>
+
+<p>Mazeppa left the czar's presence in deep offence, muttering the
+displeasure which it would have been death to speak openly, and bent on
+revenge. Soon after he entered into communication with Charles XII. of
+Sweden, the bitter enemy of Russia, which he was then invading. He
+suggested that the Swedish army should advance into Southern Russia,
+where the Cossacks would be sure to be sent to meet it. He would then go
+over with all his forces to the Swedish side, so strengthening it that
+the army of the czar could not stand against it. The King of Sweden
+might retain the territory won by his arms, while the Cossacks would
+retire to their own land, and become again, as of old, an independent
+tribe.</p>
+
+<p>The plot was well laid, but it failed through the loyalty of the
+Cossacks. They broke into wild indignation when Mazeppa unfolded to them
+his plan, most of them refusing to join in the revolt, and threatening
+to seize him and deliver him, bound hand and foot, to the czar. Some two
+thousand in all adhered to Mazeppa, and for a time it seemed as if a
+bloody battle would take place between the two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>sections of the tribe,
+but in the end the chief and his followers made their way to the Swedish
+camp, while the others marched back and put themselves under the command
+of the nearest Russian general.</p>
+
+<p>Mazeppa was now sentenced to death, and executed,&mdash;luckily for him, in
+effigy only. In person he was out of the reach of his foes. A wooden
+image was made to represent the culprit, and on this dumb block the
+penalties prescribed for him were inflicted. A pretty play&mdash;for a savage
+horde&mdash;they made of it. The image was dressed to imitate Mazeppa, while
+representations of the medals, ribbons, and other decorations he usually
+wore were placed upon it. It was then brought out before the general and
+leading officers, the soldiers being drawn up in a square around it. A
+herald now read the sentence of condemnation, and the mock execution
+began. First Mazeppa's patent of knighthood was torn to pieces and the
+fragments flung into the air. Then the medals and decorations were rent
+from the image and trampled underfoot. Finally the image itself was
+struck a blow that toppled it over into the dust. The hangman now took
+it in hand, tied a rope round its neck, and dragged it to a gibbet, on
+which it was hung. The affair ended in the Cossacks choosing a new
+chief.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of Mazeppa's story may soon be told. The battle of
+Pultowa, fought, it is said, by his advice, ended the military career of
+the great Swedish general. The Cossack chief made his escape, with the
+King of Sweden, into Turkish territory, and the reward which the czar
+offered for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> body, dead or alive, was never claimed. Mentchikof took
+what revenge he could by capturing and sacking his capital city,
+Baturin, while throughout Russia his name was anathematized from the
+pulpit. Traitor in his old days, and a fugitive in a foreign land, the
+disgrace of his action seemed to weigh heavily upon the mind of the old
+chief of the Ukraine, and in the following year he put an end to the
+wretchedness of his life by poison.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Peter the Great</span> hated Moscow. It was to him the embodiment of that old
+Russia which he was seeking to reform out of existence. Had he been able
+to work his own will in all things, he would never have set foot within
+its walls; but circumstances are stronger than men, even though the
+latter be Russian czars. In one respect Peter set himself against
+circumstance, and built Russia a capital in a locality seemingly lacking
+in all natural adaptation for a city.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days of the eighteenth century his armies captured a small
+Swedish fort on Lake Ladoga near the river Neva. The locality pleased
+him, and he determined to build on the Neva a city which should serve
+Russia as a naval station and commercial port in the north. Why he
+selected this spot it is not easy to say. Better localities for his
+purpose might have been easily chosen. There was old Novgorod, a centre
+of commerce during many centuries of the past, which it would have been
+a noble tribute to ancient Russian history to revive. There was Riga, a
+city better situated for the Baltic commerce. But Peter would have none
+of these; he wanted a city of his own, one that should carry his name
+down through the ages, that should rival the Alexandria of Alexander the
+Great, and he chose for it a most inauspicious and inhospitable site.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p><p>The Neva, a short but deep and wide stream, which carries to the sea
+the waters of the great lakes Ladoga, Onega, and Ilmen, breaks up near
+its mouth and makes its way into the Gulf of Finland through numerous
+channels, between which lie a series of islands. These then bore Finnish
+names equivalent to Island of Hares, Island of Buffaloes, and the like.
+Overgrown with thickets, their surfaces marshy, liable to annual
+overflow, inhabited only by a few Finnish fishermen, who fled from their
+huts to the mainland when the waters rose, they were far from promising;
+yet these islands took Peter's fancy as a suitable site for a commercial
+port, and with his usual impetuosity he plunged into the business of
+making a city to order.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image10.jpg" width="600" height="362" alt="ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER." title="" />
+<span class="caption">ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In truth, he fell in love with the spot, though what he saw in it to
+admire is not so clear. In summer mud ruled there supreme: the very name
+Neva is Finnish for "mud." During four months of the year ice took the
+place of mud, and the islands and stream were fettered fast. The country
+surrounding was largely a desert, its barren plains alternating with
+forests whose only inhabitants were wolves. Years after the city was
+built, wolves prowled into its streets and devoured two sentries in
+front of one of the government buildings. Moscow lay four hundred miles
+away, and the country between was bleak and almost uninhabited. Even
+to-day the traveller on leaving St. Petersburg finds himself in a
+desert. The great plain over which he passes spreads away in every
+direction, not a steeple, not a tree, not a man or beast, visible upon
+its bare expanse. There is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> pasturage nor farming land. Fruits and
+vegetables can scarcely be grown; corn must be brought from a distance.
+Rye is an article of garden culture in St. Petersburg, cabbages and
+turnips are its only vegetables, and a beehive there is a curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, as has been said, Peter was attracted to the place, which in one of
+his letters he called his "paradise." It may have reminded him of
+Holland, the scene of his nautical education. The locality had a certain
+sacredness in Russian tradition, being looked upon as the most ancient
+Russian ground. By the mouth of the Neva had passed Rurik and his
+fellows in their journeys across the Varangian sea,&mdash;<i>their own sea</i>.
+The czar was willing to restore to Sweden all his conquests in Livonia
+and Esthonia, but the Neva he would not yield. From boyhood he had
+dreamed of giving Russia a navy and opening it up to the world's
+commerce, and here was a ready opening to the waters of the Baltic and
+the distant Atlantic.</p>
+
+<p>St. Petersburg owed its origin to a whim; but it was the whim of a man
+whose will swayed the movements of millions. He was not even willing to
+begin his work on the high ground of the mainland, but chose the Island
+of Hares, the nearest of the islands to the gulf. It was a seaport, not
+a capital, that he at first had in view. Legend tells us that he
+snatched a halberd from one of his soldiers, cut with it two strips of
+turf, and laid them crosswise, saying, "Here there shall be a town."
+Then, dropping the halberd, he seized a spade and began the first
+embankment. As he dug, an eagle appeared and hovered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> above his head.
+Shot by one of the men, it fluttered to his feet. Picking up the wounded
+bird, he set out in a boat to explore the waters around. To this event
+is given the date of May 16, 1703.</p>
+
+<p>The city began in a fortress, for the building of which carpenters and
+masons were brought from distant towns. The soldiers served as laborers.
+In this labor tools were notable chiefly for their absence. Wheelbarrows
+were unknown; they are still but little used in Russia. Spades and
+baskets were equally lacking, and the czar's impatience could not wait
+for them to be procured. The men scraped up the earth with their hands
+or with sticks and carried it in the skirts of their caftans to the
+ramparts. The czar sent orders to Moscow that two thousand of the
+thieves and outlaws destined for Siberia should be despatched the next
+summer to the Neva.</p>
+
+<p>The fort was at first built of wood, which was replaced by stone some
+years afterwards. Logs served for all other structures, for no stone was
+to be had. Afterwards every boat coming to the town was required to
+bring a certain number of stones, and, to attract masons to the new
+city, the building of stone houses in Moscow or elsewhere was forbidden.
+As for the fortress, which was erected at no small cost in life and
+money, it soon became useless, and to-day it only protects the mint and
+cathedral of St. Petersburg.</p>
+
+<p>The new city, named Petersburg from its founder, has long been known as
+St. Petersburg. While the fort was in process of erection a church was
+also built, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. The site of this wooden
+edifice is now occupied by the cathedral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> begun in 1714, ten years
+later. As regarded a home for himself, Peter was easily satisfied. A hut
+of logs&mdash;his palace he called it&mdash;was built near the fortress,
+fifty-five feet long by twenty-five wide, and containing but three
+rooms. At a later date, to preserve this his first place of residence in
+his new city, he enclosed it within another building. Thus it still
+remains, a place of pilgrimage for devout Russians. It contains many
+relics of the great czar. His bedroom is now a chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Such a city, in such a situation, should have taken years to build.
+Peter wished to have it done in months, and he pushed the labor with
+little regard for its cost in life and treasure. Men were brought from
+all sections of Russia and put to work. Disease broke out among them,
+engendered by the dampness of the soil; but the work went on. Floods
+came and covered the island, drowning some of the sick in their beds;
+but there was no alleviation. History tells us that Swedish prisoners
+were employed, and that they died by thousands. Death, in Peter's eyes,
+was only an unpleasant incident, and new workmen were brought in
+multitudes, many of them to perish in their turn. It has been said that
+the building of the city cost two hundred thousand lives. This is, no
+doubt, an exaggeration, but it indicates a frightful mortality. But the
+feverish impatience of the czar told in results, and by 1714 the city
+possessed over thirty-four thousand buildings, with inhabitants in
+proportion.</p>
+
+<p>The floods came and played their part in the work of death. In that of
+1706, Peter measured water<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> twenty-one inches deep on the floor of his
+hut. He thought it "extremely amusing" as men, women, and children were
+swept past his windows on floating wreckage down the stream. What the
+people themselves thought of it history does not say.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image11.jpg" width="400" height="597" alt="SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>As yet Peter had no design of making St. Petersburg the capital of his
+empire. That conception seems not to have come to him until after the
+crushing defeat of the Swedish monarch Charles XII. at the battle of
+Pultowa. And indeed it was not until 1817 that it was made the capital.
+It was the fifth Russian capital, its predecessors in that honor having
+been Novgorod, Kief, Vladimir, and Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>To add a commercial quarter to the new city, Peter chose the island of
+Vasily Ostrof,&mdash;the Finnish "Island of Buffaloes,"&mdash;where a town was
+laid out in the Dutch fashion, with canals for streets. This island is
+still the business centre of the city, though the canals have long since
+disappeared. The streets of St. Petersburg for many years continued
+unpaved, notwithstanding the marshy character of the soil, and in the
+early days boats replaced carriages for travel and traffic.</p>
+
+<p>The work of building the new capital was not confined to the czar. The
+nobles were obliged to build palaces in it,&mdash;very much to their chagrin.
+They hated St. Petersburg as cordially as Peter hated Moscow. They
+already had large and elegant mansions in the latter city, and had
+little relish for building new ones in this desert capital, four hundred
+miles to the north. But the word of the czar was law, and none dared say
+him nay. Every proprietor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> whose estate held five hundred serfs was
+ordered to build a stone house of two stories in the new city. Those of
+greater wealth had to build more pretentious edifices. Peter's own taste
+in architecture was not good. He loved low and small rooms. None of his
+palaces were fine buildings. In building the Winter Palace, whose
+stories were made high enough to conform to others on the street, he had
+double ceilings put in his special rooms, so as to reduce their height.</p>
+
+<p>The city under way, the question of its defence became prominent. The
+Swedes, the mortal enemies of the czar, looked with little favor on this
+new project, and their prowling vessels in the gulf seemed to threaten
+it with attack. Peter made vigorous efforts to prepare for defence.
+Ship-building went on briskly on the Svir River, between Lakes Ladoga
+and Onega, and the vessels were got down as quickly as possible into the
+Neva. Peter himself explored and measured the depth of water in the Gulf
+of Finland. Here, some twenty miles from the city, lay the island of
+Cronslot, seven miles long, and in the narrowest part of the gulf. The
+northern channel past this island proved too shallow to be a source of
+danger. The southern channel was navigable, and this the czar determined
+to fortify.</p>
+
+<p>A fort was begun in the water near the island's shores, stone being sunk
+for its foundation. Work on it was pressed with the greatest energy, for
+fear of an attack by the Swedish fleet, and it was completed before the
+winter's end. With the idea of making this his commercial port, Peter
+had many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> stone warehouses built on the island, most of which soon fell
+into decay for want of use. But to-day Cronstadt, as the new town and
+fortress were called, is the greatest naval station and one of the most
+flourishing commercial cities in Russia, while its fortifications
+protect the capital from dangers of assault.</p>
+
+<p>In those early days, however, St. Petersburg was designed to be the
+centre of commerce, and Peter took what means he could to entice
+merchant vessels to his new city. The first to appear&mdash;coming almost by
+accident&mdash;was of Dutch build. It arrived in November, 1703, and Peter
+himself served as pilot to bring it up to the town. Great was the
+astonishment of the skipper, on being afterwards presented to the czar,
+to recognize in him his late pilot. And Peter's delight was equally
+great on learning that the ship had been freighted by Cornelis Calf, one
+of his old Zaandam friends. The skipper was feasted to his heart's
+content and presented with five hundred ducats, while each sailor
+received thirty thalers, and the ship was renamed the St. Petersburg.
+Two other ships appeared the same year, one Dutch and one English, and
+their skippers and crews received the same reward. These pioneer vessels
+were exempted forever from all tolls and dues at that port.</p>
+
+<p>St. Petersburg, as it exists to-day, bears very little resemblance to
+the city of Peter's plan. To his successors are due the splendid granite
+quays, which aid in keeping out the overflowing stream, the rows of
+palaces, the noble churches and public buildings, the statues, columns,
+and other triumphs of architecture which abundantly adorn the great
+modern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> capital. The marshy island soil has been lifted by two centuries
+of accretions, while the main city has crept up from its old location to
+the mainland, where the fashionable quarters and the government offices
+now stand.</p>
+
+<p>St. Petersburg is still exposed to yearly peril by overflow. The violent
+autumnal storms, driving the waters of the gulf into the channel of the
+stream, back up terrible floods. The spring-time rise in the lakes which
+feed the Neva threatens similar disaster. In 1721 Peter himself narrowly
+escaped drowning in the Nevski Prospect, now the finest street in
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Of the floods that have desolated the city, the greatest was that of
+November, 1824. Driven into the river's mouth by a furious southwest
+storm, the waters of the gulf were heaped up to the first stories of the
+houses even in the highest streets. Horses and carriages were swept
+away; bridges were torn loose and floated off; numbers of houses were
+moved from their foundations; a full regiment of carbineers, who had
+taken refuge on the roof of their barracks, perished in the furious
+torrent. At Cronstadt the waters rose so high that a hundred-gun ship
+was left stranded in the market-place. The czar, who had just returned
+from a long journey to the east, found himself made captive in his own
+palace. Standing on the balcony which looks up the Neva, surrounded by
+his weeping family, he saw with deep dismay wrecks of every kind,
+bridges and merchandise, horses and cattle, and houses peopled with
+helpless inmates, swept before his eyes by the raging flood.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> Boats were
+overturned and emptied their crews into the stream. Some who escaped
+death by drowning died from the bitter cold as they floated downward on
+vessels or rafts. It seemed almost as if the whole city would be carried
+bodily into the gulf.</p>
+
+<p>The official reports of this disaster state that forty-five hundred of
+the people perished,&mdash;probably not half the true figure. Of the houses
+that remained, many were ruined, and thousands of poor wretches wandered
+homeless through the drenched streets. Such was one example of the
+inheritance left by Peter the Great to the dwellers in his favorite
+city, his "window to Europe," as it has been called.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>FROM THE HOVEL TO THE THRONE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> reign of Peter the Great was signalized by two notable instances of
+the rise of persons from the lowest to the highest estate, ability being
+placed above birth and talent preferred to noble descent. A poor boy,
+Mentchikof by name, son of a monastery laborer, had made his way to
+Moscow and there found employment with a pastry-cook, who sent him out
+daily with a basket of mince pies, which he was to sell in the streets.
+The boy was destitute of education, but he had inherited a musical voice
+and a lively manner, which stood him in good stead in proclaiming the
+merits of his wares. He could sing a ballad in taking style, and became
+so widely known for his songs and stories that he was often invited into
+gentlemen's houses to entertain company. His voice and his wit ended in
+making him a prince of the empire, a favorite of the czar, and in the
+end virtually the emperor of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Being one day in the kitchen of a boyar's house, where dinner was being
+prepared for the czar, who had promised to dine there that day, young
+Mentchikof overheard the master of the house give special directions to
+his cook about a dish of meat of which he said the czar was especially
+fond, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> noticed that he furtively dropped a powder of some kind into
+it, as if by way of spice.</p>
+
+<p>This act seemed suspicious to the acute lad. Noting particularly the
+composition of the dish, he betook himself to the street, where he began
+again to exalt the merits of his pies and to entertain the passers-by
+with ballads. He kept in the vicinity of the boyar's house until the
+czar arrived, when he raised his voice to its highest pitch and began to
+sing vociferously. The czar, attracted by the boy's voice and amused by
+his manner, called him up, and asked him if he would sell his stock in
+trade, basket and all.</p>
+
+<p>"I have orders only to sell the pies," replied the shrewd vender: "I
+cannot sell the basket without asking my master's leave. But, as
+everything in Russia belongs to your majesty, you have only to lay on me
+your commands."</p>
+
+<p>This answer so greatly pleased the czar that he bade the boy come with
+him into the house and wait on him at table, much to the young
+pie-vender's joy, as it was just the result for which he had hoped. The
+dinner went on, Mentchikof waiting on the czar with such skill as he
+could command, and watching eagerly for the approach of the suspected
+dish. At length it was brought in and placed on the table before the
+czar. The boy thereupon leaned forward and whispered in the monarch's
+ear, begging him not to eat of that dish.</p>
+
+<p>Surprised at this request, and quick to suspect something wrong, the
+czar rose and walked into an adjoining room, bidding the boy accompany
+him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p><p>"What do you mean?" he asked. "Why should I not eat of that particular
+dish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am afraid it is not all right," answered the boy. "I was in
+the kitchen while it was being prepared, and saw the boyar, when the
+cook's back was turned, drop a powder into the dish. I do not know what
+all this meant, but thought it my duty to put your majesty on your
+guard."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for your shrewdness, my lad," said the czar; "I will bear it in
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>Peter returned to the table with his wonted cheerfulness of countenance,
+giving no indication that he had heard anything unusual.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like your majesty to try that dish," said the boyar: "I fancy
+that you will find it very good."</p>
+
+<p>"Come sit here beside me," suggested Peter. It was the custom at that
+time in Moscow for the master of a house to wait on the table when he
+entertained guests.</p>
+
+<p>Peter put some of the questionable dish on a plate and placed it before
+his host.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt it is good," he said. "Try some of it yourself and set me an
+example."</p>
+
+<p>This request threw the host into a state of the utmost confusion, and
+with trembling utterance he replied that it was not becoming for a
+servant to eat with his master.</p>
+
+<p>"It is becoming to a dog, if I wish it," answered Peter, and he set the
+plate on the floor before a dog which was in the room.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the brute had emptied the dish. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> in a short time the
+poor animal was seen to be in convulsions, and it soon fell dead before
+the assembled company.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the dish you recommended so highly?" said Peter, fixing a
+terrible look on the shrinking boyar. "So I was to take the place of
+that dead dog?"</p>
+
+<p>Orders were given to have the animal opened and examined, and the result
+of the investigation proved beyond doubt that its death was due to
+poison. The culprit, however, escaped the terrible punishment which he
+would have suffered at Peter's hands by taking his own life. He was
+found dead in bed the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>We do not vouch for the truth of this interesting story. Though told by
+a writer of Peter's time, it is doubted by late historians. But such is
+the fate of the best stories afloat, and the voice of doubt threatens to
+rob history of much of its romance. The story of Mentchikof, in its most
+usual shape, states that Le Fort, general and admiral, was the first to
+be attracted to the sprightly boy, and that Peter saw him at Le Fort's
+house, was delighted with him, and made him his page.</p>
+
+<p>The pastry-cook's boy soon became the indispensable companion of the
+czar, assisted him in his workshop, attended him in his wars, and at the
+siege of Azov displayed the greatest bravery. He accompanied Peter in
+his travels, worked with him in Holland, and distinguished himself in
+the wars with the Swedes, receiving the order of St. Andrew for
+gallantry at the battle of the Neva. In 1704 he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> given the rank of
+general, and was the first to defeat the Swedes in a pitched battle. At
+the czar's request he was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.</p>
+
+<p>As Prince Mentchikof the new grandee loomed high. His house in Moscow
+was magnificent, his banquets were gorgeous with gold and silver plate,
+and the ambassadors of the powers of Europe figured among his guests.
+Such was the bright side of the picture. The dark side was one of
+extortion and robbery, in which the favorite of the czar out-did in
+peculation all the other officials of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>Peculation in Russia, indeed, assumed enormous proportions, but this was
+a crime towards which Peter did not manifest his usual severity. Two of
+the robbers in high places were executed, but the others were let off
+with fines and a castigation with Peter's walking-stick, which he was in
+the habit of using freely on high and low alike. As for Mentchikof, he
+was incorrigible. So high was he in favor with his master that the
+senators, who had abundant proofs of his robberies and little love for
+him personally, dared not openly accuse him before the czar. The most
+they ventured to do was to draw up a statement of his peculations and
+lay the paper on the table at the czar's seat. Peter saw it, ran his eye
+over its contents, but said nothing. Day after day the paper lay in the
+same place, but the czar continued silent. One day as he sat in the
+senate, the senator Tolstoi, who sat beside him, was bold enough to ask
+him what he thought of that document.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," Peter replied, "but that Mentchikof will always be
+Mentchikof."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>The death of Peter placed the favorite in a precarious position. He had
+a host of enemies, who would have rejoiced in his downfall. These, who
+formed what may be called the Old Russian party, wished to proclaim as
+monarch the grandson of the deceased czar. But Mentchikof and the party
+of reform were beforehand with them, and gave the throne to Catharine,
+the widow of the late monarch. Under her the pastry-cook's boy rose to
+the summit of his power and virtually governed the country. Unluckily
+for the favorite, Catharine died in two years, and a new czar, Peter
+II., grandson of Peter the Great, came to the throne.</p>
+
+<p>Mentchikof had been left guardian of the youthful czar, to whom his
+daughter was betrothed, and whom he took to his house and surrounded
+with his creatures. And now for a time the favorite soared higher than
+ever, was practically lord of the land, and made himself more feared
+than had been Peter himself.</p>
+
+<p>But he had reached the verge of a precipice. There was no love between
+the young czar and Mary Mentchikof, and the youthful prince was soon
+brought to dislike his guardian. Events moved fast. Peter left
+Mentchikof's house and sought the summer palace, to which his guardian
+was refused admittance. Soon after he was arrested, the shock of the
+disgrace bringing on an apoplectic stroke. In vain he appealed to the
+emperor; he was ordered to retire to his estate, and soon after was
+banished, with his whole family, to Siberia. This was in 1727. The
+disgraced favorite survived his exile but two years,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> dying of apoplexy
+in 1729. Four months afterwards the new czar followed in death the man
+he had disgraced.</p>
+
+<p>The other instance of a rise from low to high estate was that of the
+empress herself, whose career was very closely related to that of
+Mentchikof. There are various instances in history of a woman of low
+estate being chosen to share a monarch's throne, but only one, that of
+Catharine of Russia, in which a poor stranger, taken from among the
+ruins of a plundered town, became eventually the absolute sovereign of
+that empire into which she had been carried as captive or slave.</p>
+
+<p>It was in 1702, during the sharply contested war between Russia and
+Sweden, that, while Charles XII. of Sweden was making conquests in
+Poland, the Russian army was having similar success in Livonia and
+Ingria. Among the Russian successes was the capture of a small town
+named Marienburg, which surrendered at discretion, but whose magazines
+were blown up by the Swedes. This behavior so provoked the Russian
+general that he gave orders for the town to be destroyed and all its
+inhabitants to be carried off.</p>
+
+<p>Among the prisoners was a girl, Catharine by name, a native of Livonia,
+who had been left an orphan at the age of three years, and had been
+brought up as a servant in the family of M. Gluck, the minister of the
+place. Such was the humble origin of the woman who was to become the
+wife of Peter the Great, and afterwards Catharine I., Empress of Russia.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p><p>In 1702 Catharine, then seventeen years of age, married a Swedish
+dragoon, one of the garrison of Marienburg. Her married life was a short
+one, her husband being obliged to leave her in two days to join his
+regiment. She never saw him again. She could neither read nor write,
+and, like Mentchikof, never learned those arts. She was, however,
+handsome and attractive, delicate and well formed, and of a most
+excellent temper, being never known to be out of humor, while she was
+obliging and civil to all, and after her exaltation took good care of
+the family of her benefactor Gluck. As for her first husband, she sent
+him sums of money until 1705, when he was killed in battle.</p>
+
+<p>It was a common fate of prisoners of war then to be sold as slaves to
+the Turks, but the beauty of Catharine saved her from this. After some
+vicissitudes, she fell into the hands of Mentchikof, at whose quarters
+she was seen by the czar. Struck by her beauty and good sense, Peter
+took her to his palace, where, finding in her a warm appreciation of his
+plans of reform and an admirable disposition, he made her his own by a
+private marriage. In 1711 this was supplemented by a public wedding.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine was soon able amply to reward the czar for the honor he had
+conferred upon her. He was at war with the Turks, and, through a foolish
+contempt for their generalship and military skill, allowed himself to
+fall into a trap from which there seemed no escape. He found himself
+completely surrounded by the enemy and cut off from all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>supplies, and
+it seemed as if he would be forced to surrender with his whole force to
+the despised foe.</p>
+
+<p>From this dilemma Catharine, who was in the camp, relieved him.
+Collecting a large sum of money and presents of jewelry, and seeking the
+camp of the enemy, she succeeded in bribing the Turkish general, or in
+some way inducing him to conclude peace and suffer the Russian army to
+escape. Peter repaid his able wife by conferring upon her the dignity of
+empress.</p>
+
+<p>The death of the czar was followed, as we have said, by the elevation of
+his wife to the vacant throne, principally through the aid of
+Mentchikof, her former lord and master, aided by the effect of her
+seemingly inconsolable grief and the judicious distribution of money and
+jewels as presents.</p>
+
+<p>For two years Catharine and Mentchikof, whose life had begun in the
+hovel, and who were now virtually together on the throne, were the
+unquestioned autocrats of Russia. Catharine had no genius for
+government, and left the control of affairs to her minister, who was to
+all intents and purposes sovereign of Russia. The empress, meanwhile,
+passed her days in vice and dissipation, thereby hastening her end. She
+died in 1727, at the age of about forty years. In the same year, as
+already stated, the man who had grown great with her fell from his high
+estate.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Amid</span> the serious matters which present themselves so abundantly in the
+history of Russia, buffooneries of the coarsest character at times find
+place. Numerous examples of this might be drawn from the reign of Peter
+the Great, whose idea of humor was broad burlesque, and who, despite the
+religious prejudices of the people, did not hesitate to make the church
+the subject of his jests. One of the broadest of these farces was that
+known as the Conclave, the purpose of which was to burlesque or treat
+with contumely the method of selecting the head of the Roman Catholic
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>At the court of the czar was an old man named Sotof, a drunkard of
+inimitable powers of imbibition, and long a butt for the jests of the
+court. He had taught the czar to write, a service which he deemed worthy
+of being rewarded by the highest dignities of the empire.</p>
+
+<p>Peter, who dearly loved a practical joke, learning the aspirations of
+the old sot, promised to confer on him the most eminent office in the
+world, and accordingly appointed him <i>Kniaz Papa</i> that is, prince-pope,
+with a salary of two thousand roubles and a palace at St. Petersburg.
+The exaltation of Sotof to this dignity was solemnized by a performance
+more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> gross than ludicrous. Buffoons were chosen to lift the new
+dignitary to his throne, and four fellows who stammered with every word
+delivered absurd addresses upon his exaltation. The mock pope then
+created a number of cardinals, at whose head he rode through the streets
+in procession, his seat of state being a cask of brandy which was
+carried on a sledge drawn by four oxen.</p>
+
+<p>The cardinals followed, and after them came sledges laden with food and
+drink, while the music of the procession consisted of a hideous turmoil
+of drums, trumpets, horns, fiddles, and hautboys, all playing out of
+time, mingled with the ear-splitting clatter of pots and pans vigorously
+beaten by a troop of cooks and scullions. Next came a number of men
+dressed as Roman Catholic monks, each carrying a bottle and a glass. In
+the rear of the procession marched the czar and his courtiers, Peter
+dressed as a Dutch skipper, the others wearing various comic disguises.</p>
+
+<p>The place fixed for the conclave being reached, the cardinals were led
+into a long gallery, along which had been built a range of closets. In
+each of these a cardinal was shut up, abundantly provided with food and
+drink. To each of the cardinals two conclavists were attached, whose
+duty it was to ply them with brandy, carry insulting messages from one
+to another, and induce them, as they grew tipsy, to bawl out all sorts
+of abuse of one another. To all this ribaldry the czar listened with
+delight, taking note at the same time of anything said of which he might
+make future use against the participants.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p><p>This orgy lasted three days and three nights, the cardinals not being
+released until they had agreed upon answers to a number of ridiculous
+questions propounded to them by the Kniaz Papa. Then the doors were
+flung open, and the pope and his cardinals were drawn home at mid-day
+dead drunk on sledges,&mdash;that is, such of them as survived, for some had
+actually drunk themselves to death, while others never recovered from
+the effect of their debauch.</p>
+
+<p>This offensive absurdity appealed so strongly to the czar's idea of
+humor that he had it three times repeated, it growing more gross and
+shameless on each successive occasion; and during the last conclave
+Peter indulged in such excesses that his death was hastened by their
+effects.</p>
+
+<p>As for the national church of Russia, Peter treated it with contemptuous
+indifference. The office of patriarch becoming vacant, he left it
+unfilled for twenty-one years, and finally, on being implored by a
+delegation from the clergy to appoint a patriarch, he started up in a
+furious passion, struck his breast with his fist and the table with his
+cutlass, and roared out, "Here, here is your patriarch!" He then stamped
+angrily from the room, leaving the prelates in a state of utter dismay.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after he took occasion to make the church the subject of a second
+coarse jest. Another buffoon of the court, Buturlin by name, was
+appointed Kniaz Papa, and a marriage arranged between him and the widow
+of Sotof, his predecessor. The bridegroom was eighty-four years of age,
+the bride nearly as old. Some decrepit old men were chosen to play the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+part of bridesmaids, four stutterers invited the wedding guests, while
+four of the most corpulent fellows who could be found attended the
+procession as running footmen. A sledge drawn by bears held the
+orchestra, their music being accompanied with roars from the animals,
+which were goaded with iron spikes. The nuptial benediction was given in
+the cathedral by a blind and deaf priest, who wore huge spectacles. The
+marriage, the wedding feast, and the remaining ceremonies were all
+conducted in the same spirit of broad burlesque, in which one of the
+sacred ceremonies of the Russian Church was grossly paraphrased.</p>
+
+<p>Peter did not confine himself to coarse jests in his efforts to
+discredit the clergy. He took every occasion to unmask the trickery of
+the priests. Petersburg, the new city he was building, was an object of
+abhorrence to these superstitious worthies, who denounced it as one of
+the gates of hell, prophesying that it would be overthrown by the wrath
+of heaven, and fixing the date on which this was to occur. So great was
+the fear inspired by their prophecies that work was suspended in spite
+of the orders of the terrible czar.</p>
+
+<p>To impress the people with the imminency of the peril, the priests
+displayed a sacred image from whose eyes flowed miraculous tears. It
+seemed to weep over the coming fate of the dwellers within the doomed
+city.</p>
+
+<p>"Its hour is at hand," said the priests; "it will soon be swallowed up,
+with all its inhabitants, by a tremendous inundation."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p><p>When word of this seeming miracle and of the consternation which it had
+produced was brought to the czar, he hastened with his usual impetuosity
+to the spot, bent on exposing the dangerous fraud which his enemies were
+perpetrating. He found the weeping image surrounded by a multitude of
+superstitious citizens, who gazed with open-eyed wonder and reverence on
+the miraculous feat.</p>
+
+<p>Their horror was intense when Peter boldly approached and examined the
+image. Petrified with terror, they looked to see him stricken dead by a
+bolt from heaven. But their feelings changed when the czar, breaking
+open the head of the image, explained to them the ingenious trick which
+the priests had devised. The head was found to contain a reservoir of
+congealed oil, which, as it was melted by the heat of lighted tapers
+beneath, flowed out drop by drop through artfully provided holes, and
+ran from the eyes like tears. On seeing this the dismay of the people
+turned to anger against the priests, and the building of the city went
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The court fool was an institution born in barbarism, though it survived
+long into the age of civilization, having its latest survival in Russia,
+the last European state to emerge from barbarism. In the days of Peter
+the Great the fool was a fixed institution in Russia, though this
+element of court life had long vanished from Western Europe. In truth,
+the buffoon flourished in Russia like a green bay-tree. Peter was never
+satisfied with less than a dozen of these fun-making worthies, and a
+private family which could not afford at least one hired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> fool was
+thought to be in very straitened circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>In the reign of the empress Anne the number of court buffoons was
+reduced to six, but three of the six were men of the highest birth. They
+had been degraded to this office for some fault, and if they refused to
+perform such fooleries as the queen and her courtiers desired they were
+whipped with rods.</p>
+
+<p>Among those who suffered this indignity was no less a grandee than
+Prince Galitzin. He had changed his religion, and for this offence he
+was made court page, though he was over forty years of age, and buffoon,
+though his son was a lieutenant in the army, and his family one of the
+first in the realm. His name is here given in particular as he was made
+the subject of a cruel jest, which could have been perpetrated nowhere
+but in the Russian court at that period.</p>
+
+<p>The winter of 1740, in which this event took place, was of unusual
+severity. Prince Galitzin's wife having died, the empress forced him to
+marry a girl of the lowest birth, agreeing to defray the cost of the
+wedding, which proved to be by no means small.</p>
+
+<p>As a preliminary a house was built wholly of ice, and all its furniture,
+tables, seats, ornaments, and even the nuptial bedstead, were made of
+the same frigid material. In front of the house were placed four cannons
+and two mortars of ice, so solid in construction that they were fired
+several times without bursting. To make up the wedding procession
+persons of all the nations subject to Russia, and of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> both sexes, were
+brought from the several provinces, dressed in their national costumes.</p>
+
+<p>The procession was an extraordinary one. The new-married couple rode on
+the back of an elephant, in a huge cage. Of those that followed some
+were mounted on camels, some rode in sledges drawn by various beasts,
+such as reindeer, oxen, dogs, goats, and hogs. The train, which all
+Moscow turned out to witness, embraced more than three hundred persons,
+and made its way past the palace of the empress and through all the
+principal streets of the city.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding dinner was given in Biren's riding-house, which was
+appropriately decorated, and in which each group of the guests were
+supplied with food cooked after the manner of their own country. A ball
+followed, in which the people of each nation danced their national
+dances to their national music. The pith of the joke, in the Russian
+appreciation of that day, came at the end, the bride and groom being
+conducted to a bed of ice in an icy palace, in which they were forced to
+spend the night, guards being stationed at the door to prevent their
+getting out before morning.</p>
+
+<p>Though not so gross as Peter's nuptial jests, this was more cruel, and,
+in view of the social station of the groom, a far greater indignity.</p>
+
+<p>A Russian state dinner during the reign of Peter the Great, as described
+by Dr. Birch, speaking from personal observation, was one in which only
+those of the strongest stomach could safely take part. On such
+occasions, indeed, the experienced ate their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>dinners beforehand at
+home, knowing well what to expect at the czar's table. Ceremony was
+absolutely lacking, and, as two or three hundred persons were usually
+invited to a feast set for a hundred, a most undignified scuffling for
+seats took place, each holder of a chair being forced to struggle with
+those who sought to snatch it from him. In this turmoil distinguished
+foreigners had to fight like the natives for their seats.</p>
+
+<p>Finally they took their places without regard to dignity or station.
+"Carpenters and shipwrights sit next to the czar; but senators,
+ministers, generals, priests, sailors, buffoons of all kinds, sit
+pell-mell, without any distinction." And they were crowded so closely
+that it was with great difficulty they could lift their hands to their
+mouths. As for foreigners, if they happened to sit between Russians,
+they were little likely to have any appetite to eat. All this Peter
+encouraged, on the plea that ceremony would produce uneasiness and
+stiffness.</p>
+
+<p>There was usually but one napkin for two or three guests, which they
+fought for as they had for seats; while each person had but one plate
+during dinner, "so if some Russian does not care to mix the sauces of
+the different dishes together, he pours the soup that is left in his
+plate either into the dish or into his neighbor's plate, or even under
+the table, after which he licks his plate clean with his finger, and,
+last of all, wipes it with the table-cloth."</p>
+
+<p>Liquids seem to have played as important a part as solids at these
+meals, each guest being obliged to begin with a cup of brandy, after
+which great glasses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> of wine were served, "and betweenwhiles a bumper of
+the strongest English beer, by which mixture of liquors every one of the
+guests is fuddled before the soup is served up." And this was not
+confined to the men, the women being obliged to take their share in the
+liberal potations. As for the music that played in the adjoining room,
+it was utterly drowned in the noise around the table, the uproar being
+occasionally increased by a fighting-bout between two drunken guests,
+which the czar, instead of stopping, witnessed with glee.</p>
+
+<p>We may close with a final quotation from Dr. Birch. "At great
+entertainments it frequently happens that nobody is allowed to go out of
+the room from noon till midnight; hence it is easy to imagine what
+pickle a room must be in that is full of people who drink like beasts,
+and none of whom escape being dead drunk.</p>
+
+<p>"They often tie eight or ten young mice in a string, and hide them under
+green peas, or in such soups as the Russians have the greatest appetites
+to, which sets them a kicking and vomiting in a most beastly manner when
+they come to the bottom and discover the trick. They often bake cats,
+wolves, ravens, and the like in their pastries, and when the company
+have eaten them up, they tell them what they have in their stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>"The present butler is one of the czar's buffoons, to whom he has given
+the name of <i>Wiaschi</i>, with this privilege, that if any one calls him by
+that name he has leave to drub him with his wooden sword. If, therefore,
+anybody, by the czar's setting them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> on, calls out <i>Wiaschi</i>, as the
+fellow does not know exactly who it is, he falls to beating them all
+around, beginning with prince Mentchikof and ending with the last of the
+company, without excepting even the ladies, whom he strips of their head
+clothes, as he does the old Russians of their wigs, which he tramples
+upon, on which occasion it is pleasant enough to see the variety of
+their bald pates."</p>
+
+<p>On reading this account of a Russian court entertainment two centuries
+ago, we cannot wonder that after the visit of Peter the Great and his
+suite to London it was suggested that the easiest way to cleanse the
+palace in which they had been entertained might be to set it on fire and
+burn it to the ground.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>HOW A WOMAN DETHRONED A MAN.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have told how one Catharine, of lowly birth and the captive of a
+warlike raid, rose to be Empress of Russia. We have now to tell how a
+second of the same name rose to the same dignity. This one was indeed a
+princess by descent, her birthplace being a little German town. But if
+she began upon a higher level than the former Catharine, she reached a
+higher level still, this insignificant German princess becoming known in
+history as Catharine the Great, and having the high distinction of being
+the only woman to whose name the title Great has ever been attached. We
+may here say, however, that many women have lived to whom it might have
+been more properly applied.</p>
+
+<p>In 1744 this daughter of one of the innumerable German kinglings became
+Grand Duchess of Russia, through marriage with Peter, the coming heir to
+the throne. We may here step from the beaten track of our story to say
+that Russia, at this period of its history, was ruled over by a number
+of empresses, though at no other time have women occupied its throne.
+The line began with Sophia, sister of Peter the Great, who reigned for
+some years as virtual empress. Catharine, the wife of Peter, became
+actual empress, and was followed, with insignificant intervals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> of male
+rulers, by Anne, Elizabeth, and Catharine the Great. These male rulers
+were Peter II., whose reign was brief, Ivan, an infant, and Peter III.,
+husband of Catharine, who succeeded Elizabeth in 1762. It is with the
+last named that we are concerned.</p>
+
+<p>Peter III., though grandson of Peter the Great, was as weak a man as
+ever sat on a throne; Catharine a woman of unusual energy. For years of
+their married life these two had been enemies. Peter had the misfortune
+to have been born a fool, and folly on the throne is apt to make a sorry
+show. He had, besides, become a drunkard and profligate. The one good
+point about him, in the estimation of many, was his admiration for
+Frederick the Great, since he came to the throne of Russia at the crisis
+of Frederick's career, and saved him from utter ruin by withdrawing the
+Russian army from his opponents.</p>
+
+<p>His folly soon raised up against him two powerful enemies. One of these
+was the army, which did not object, after fighting with the Austrians
+against the Prussians, to turn and fight with the Prussians against the
+Austrians, but did object to the Prussian dress and discipline, which
+Peter insisted upon introducing. It possessed a discipline of its own,
+which it preferred to keep, and bitterly disliked its change of dress.
+The czar even spoke of suppressing the Guards, as his grandfather had
+suppressed the corps of the Strelitz. This was a fatal offence. It made
+this strong force his enemy, while he was utterly lacking in the
+resolution with which Peter the Great had handled rebels in arms.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p><p>The other enemy was Catharine, whom he had deserted for an unworthy
+favorite. But her enmity was quiet, and might have remained so had he
+not added insult to injury. Heated by drink, he called her a "fool" at a
+public dinner before four hundred people, including the greatest
+dignitaries of the realm and the foreign ministers. He was not satisfied
+with an insult, but added to it the folly of a threat, that of an order
+for her arrest. This he withdrew,&mdash;a worse fault, under the
+circumstances, than to have made it. He had taught Catharine that her
+only safety lay in action, if she would not be removed from the throne
+in favor of the worthless creature who had supplanted her in her
+husband's esteem.</p>
+
+<p>Events moved rapidly. It was on the 21st of June, 1762, that the insult
+was given and the threat made. Within a month the czar was dead and his
+wife reigned in his stead. On the 24th Peter left St. Petersburg for
+Oranienbaum, his summer residence. He did not propose to remain there
+long. He had it in view to join his army and defeat the Danes, his
+present foes, with the less defined intention of gaining glory on some
+great battle-field at the side of his victorious ally Frederick the
+Great. The fleet with which Denmark was to be invaded was not ready to
+sail, many of the crew being sick; but this little difficulty did not
+deter the czar. He issued an imperial ukase ordering the sick sailors to
+get well.</p>
+
+<p>On going to his summer residence Peter had imprudently left Catharine at
+St. Petersburg, taking his mistress in her stead. On the 29th his wife
+received orders from him to go to Peterhof. Thither<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> he meant to proceed
+before setting out on his campaign. His feast-day came on the 10th of
+July. On the morning of the 9th he set out with a large train of
+followers for the palace of Peterhof, where the next day Catharine was
+to give a grand dinner in his honor.</p>
+
+<p>It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Peterhof was reached. To the
+utter surprise of the czar, there were none but servants to meet him,
+and they in a state of mortal terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the empress?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>No one could tell him. She had simply gone,&mdash;where and why he was soon
+to learn. As he waited and fumed, a peasant approached and handed him a
+letter, which proved to be from Bressau, his former French valet. It
+contained the astounding information that the empress had arrived in St.
+Petersburg that morning and had been proclaimed <i>sole and absolute
+sovereign of Russia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The tale was beyond his powers of belief. Like a madman he rushed
+through the empty rooms, making them resound with vociferous demands for
+his wife; looked in every corner and cupboard; rushed wildly through the
+gardens, calling for Catharine again and again; while the crowd of
+frightened courtiers followed in his steps. It was in vain; no voice
+came in answer to his demand, no Catharine was to be found.</p>
+
+<p>The story of what had actually happened is none too well known. It has
+been told in more shapes than one. What we know is that there was a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>conspiracy to place Catharine on the throne, that the leaders of the
+troops had been tampered with, and that one of the conspirators, Captain
+Passek, had just been arrested by order of the czar. It was this arrest
+that precipitated the revolution. Fearing that all was discovered, the
+plotters took the only available means to save themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The arrest of Passek had nothing to do with the conspiracy. It was for
+quite another cause. But it proved to be an accident with great results,
+since the Orlofs, who were deep in the conspiracy, thought that their
+lives were in danger, and that safety lay only in prompt action. As a
+result, at five <span class="ampm">A.M.</span>. on July 9, Alexis Orlof suddenly appeared at
+Peterhof, and demanded to see the empress at once.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine was fast asleep when the young officer hastily entered her
+room. He lost no time in waking her. She gazed on him with surprise and
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"It is time to get up," he said, in as calm a tone as if he had been
+announcing that breakfast was waiting. "Everything is ready for your
+proclamation."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Passek is arrested. You must come," he said, in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>This was enough. A long perspective of peril lay behind those words. The
+empress arose, dressed in all haste, and sprang into the coach beside
+which Orlof awaited her. One of her women entered with her, Orlof seated
+himself in front, a groom sprang up behind, and off they set, at
+headlong speed, for St. Petersburg.</p>
+
+<p>The distance was nearly twenty miles, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> horses, which had already
+covered that distance, were in very poor condition for doubling it
+without rest. In his haste Orlof had not thought of ordering a relay.
+His carelessness might have cost them dear, since it was of vital moment
+to reach the city without delay. Fortunately, they met a peasant, and
+borrowed two horses from his cart. Those two horses perhaps won the
+throne for Catharine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image12.jpg" width="600" height="380" alt="A RUSSIAN DROSKY." title="" />
+<span class="caption">A RUSSIAN DROSKY.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Five miles from the city they met two others of the conspirators,
+devoured with anxiety. Changing to the new coach, the party drove in at
+breakneck pace, and halted before the barracks of the Ismailofsky
+regiment, with which the conspirators had been at work.</p>
+
+<p>It was between six and seven o'clock in the morning. Only a dozen men
+were at the barracks. Nothing had been prepared. Excitement or terror
+had turned all heads. Yet now no time was lost. Drummers were roused and
+drums beaten. Out came soldiers in haste, half dressed and half asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Shout 'Long live the empress!'" demanded the visitors.</p>
+
+<p>Without hesitation the guardsmen obeyed, their only thought at the
+moment being that of a free flow of <i>vodka</i>, the Russian drink. A priest
+was quickly brought, who, like the soldiers, was prepared to do as he
+was told. Raising the cross, he hastily offered them a form of oath, to
+which the soldiers subscribed. The first step was taken; the empress was
+proclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>The proclamation declared Catharine sole and absolute sovereign. It made
+no mention of her little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> son Paul, as some of the leaders in the
+conspiracy had proposed. The Orlofs controlled the situation, and the
+action of the Ismailofsky was soon sanctioned by other regiments of the
+guard. They hated the czar and were ripe for revolt.</p>
+
+<p>One regiment only, the Preobrajensky, that of which the czar himself was
+colonel, resisted. It was led against the other troops under the command
+of a captain and a major. The hostile bodies came face to face a few
+paces apart; the queen's party greatest in number, but in disorder, the
+czar's party drawn up with military skill. A moment, a word, might
+precipitate a bloody conflict.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a man in the ranks cried out, "<i>Oura!</i> Long live the empress!"
+In an instant the whole regiment echoed the cry, the ranks were broken,
+the soldiers embraced their comrades in the other ranks, and, falling on
+their knees, begged pardon of the empress for their delay.</p>
+
+<p>And now the throng turned towards the neighboring church of Our Lady of
+Kasan, in which Catharine was to receive their oaths of fidelity. A
+crowd pushed in to do homage, composed not only of soldiers, but of
+members of the senate and the synod. A manifesto was quickly drawn up by
+a clerk named Tieplof, printed in all haste, and distributed to the
+people, who read it and joined heartily in the cry of "Long live the
+empress!"</p>
+
+<p>Catharine next reviewed the troops, who again hailed her with shouts.
+And thus it was that a czar was dethroned and a new reign begun without
+the loss of a drop of blood. There was some little disorder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> Several
+wine-shops were broken into, the house of Prince George of Holstein was
+pillaged and he and his wife were roughly handled, but that was all: as
+yet it had been one of the simplest of revolutions.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine was empress, but how long would she remain so? Her empire
+consisted of the fickle people of St. Petersburg, her army of four
+regiments of the guards. If Peter had the courage to strike for his
+throne, he might readily regain it. He had with him about fifteen
+hundred Holsteiners, an excellent body of troops, on whose loyalty he
+could fully rely, for they were foreigners in Russia, and their safety
+depended on him. At the head of these troops was one of the first
+soldiers of the age, Field-Marshal M&uuml;nich. The main Russian army was in
+Pomerania, under the orders of the czar, if he were alert in giving
+them. He had it in view to annihilate the Danes, to show himself a hero
+under Frederick of Prussia; surely a handful of conspirators and a few
+regiments of malcontents would have but a shallow chance.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Catharine knew the man with whom she dealt. The grain of courage
+which would have saved Peter was not to be found in his make-up, and
+M&uuml;nich strove in vain to induce him to act with manly resolution. A
+dozen fancies passed through his mind in an hour. He drew up manifestoes
+for a paper campaign. He sent to Oranienbaum for the Holstein troops,
+intending to fortify Peterhof, but changed his mind before they arrived.</p>
+
+<p>M&uuml;nich now advised him to go to Cronstadt and secure himself in that
+stronghold. After some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>hesitation he agreed, but night had fallen
+before the whole party, male and female, set off in a yacht and galley,
+as if on a pleasure-trip. It was one o'clock in the morning when they
+arrived in sight of the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>"Who goes there?" hailed a sentinel from the ramparts.</p>
+
+<p>"The emperor."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no emperor. Keep off!"</p>
+
+<p>Delay had given Catharine ample time to get ahead of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not heed the sentry," cried M&uuml;nich. "They will not dare to fire on
+you. Land, and all will be safe."</p>
+
+<p>But Peter was below deck, in a panic of fear. The women were shrieking
+in terror. Despite M&uuml;nich, the vessels were put about. Then the old
+soldier, half in despair at this poltroonery, proposed another plan.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go to Revel, embark on a war-ship, and proceed to Pomerania.
+There you can take command of the army. Do this, sire, and within six
+weeks St. Petersburg and Russia will be at your feet. I will answer for
+this with my head."</p>
+
+<p>But Peter was hopelessly incompetent to act. He would go back to
+Oranienbaum. He would negotiate. He arrived there to learn that
+Catharine was marching on him at the head of her regiments. On she came,
+her cap crowned with oak leaves, her hair floating in the wind. The
+soldiers had thrown off their Prussian uniforms and were dressed in
+their old garb. They were eager to fight the Holstein foreigners.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p><p>No opportunity came for this. A messenger met them with a flag of
+truce. Peter had sent an offer to divide the power with Catharine.
+Receiving no answer, in an hour he sent an offer to abdicate. He was
+brought to Peterhof, where Catharine had halted, and where he cried like
+a whipped child on receiving the orders of the new empress and being
+forcibly separated from the woman who had ruined him.</p>
+
+<p>A day had changed the fate of an empire. Within little more than six
+months from his accession the czar had been hurled from his throne and
+his wife had taken his place. Peter was sent under guard to Ropcha, a
+lonely spot about twenty miles away, there to stay until accommodations
+could be prepared for him in the strong fortress of Schl&uuml;sselburg.</p>
+
+<p>He was never to reach the latter place. He had abdicated on July 14. On
+July 18 Alexis Orlof, covered with sweat and dust, burst into the
+dressing-room of the empress. He had a startling story to tell. He had
+ridden full speed from Ropcha with the news of the death of Peter III.</p>
+
+<p>The story was that the czar had been found dead in his room. That was
+doubtless the case, but that he had been murdered no one had a shadow of
+doubt. Yet no one knew, and no one knows to this day, just what had
+taken place. Stories of his having been poisoned and strangled have been
+told, not without warrant. A detailed account is given of poison being
+forced upon him by the Orlofs, who are said to have, on the poison
+failing to act, strangled him in a revolting manner by their own hands.
+Though this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> story lacks proof, the body was quite black. "Blood oozed
+through the pores, and even through the gloves which covered the hands."
+Those who kissed the corpse came away with swollen lips.</p>
+
+<p>That Peter was murdered is almost certain; but that Catharine had
+anything to do with it is not so sure. It may have been done by the
+conspirators to prevent any reversal of the revolution. Prison-walls
+have hidden many a dark event; and we only know that the czar was dead
+and Catharine on the throne.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">While</span> the armies of Catharine II. were threatening with destruction the
+empire of Turkey, and her diplomats were deciding what part of
+dismembered Poland should fall to her share, her throne itself was put
+in danger of destruction by an aspirant who arose in the east and for
+two years kept Russia from end to end in a state of dire alarm. The
+summary manner in which Peter III. had been removed from the throne was
+not relished by the people. Numerous small revolts broke out, which were
+successively put down. St. Petersburg accepted Catharine, but Moscow did
+not, and on her visits to the latter city the political atmosphere
+proved so frigid that she was glad to get back to the more genial
+climate of the city on the Neva.</p>
+
+<p>Years passed before Russia settled down to full acceptance of a reign
+begun in violence and sustained by force, and in this interval there
+were no fewer than six impostors to be dealt with, each of whom claimed
+to be Peter III. Murdered emperors sleep badly in their graves. The
+example of the false Dmitris, generations before, remained in men's
+minds, and it seemed as if every Russian who bore a resemblance to the
+vanished czar was ready to claim his vacated seat.</p>
+
+<p>Of these false Peters, the sixth and most dangerous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> was a Cossack of
+the Don, whose actual name was Pugatchef, but whose face seemed capable
+of calling up an army wherever it appeared, and who, if his ability had
+been equal to his fortune, might easily have seated himself on the
+throne. The impostor proved to be his own worst foe, and defeated
+himself by his innate barbarity.</p>
+
+<p>Pugatchef began his career as a common soldier, afterwards becoming an
+officer. Deserting the army after a period of service, he made his way
+to Poland, where he dwelt with the monks of that country and pretended
+to equal the best of them in piety. Here he was told that he bore a
+striking resemblance to Peter III. The hint was enough. He returned to
+Russia, where he professed sanctity, dressed like a patriarch of the
+church, and scattered benedictions freely among the Cossacks of the Don.
+He soon gained adherents among the old orthodox party, who were bitter
+against the religious looseness of the court. Finally he gave himself
+out as Peter III., declaring that the story of his death was false, that
+he had escaped from the hands of the assassins, and that he desired to
+win the throne, not for himself, but for his infant son Paul.</p>
+
+<p>The first result of this announcement was that the impostor was seized
+and taken to Kasan as a prisoner. But the carelessness of his guards
+allowed him to escape from his prison cell, and he made his way to the
+Volga, near its entrance into the Caspian Sea, where he began to collect
+a body of followers among the Cossacks of that region. His first open
+declaration was made on September 17, 1773, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> he appeared with three
+hundred Cossacks at the town of Yaitsk, and published an appeal to
+orthodox believers, declaring that he was the czar Peter III. and
+calling upon them for support.</p>
+
+<p>His handful of Cossacks soon grew into an army, multitudes of the
+tribesmen gathered around him, and in a brief time he found himself at
+the head of a large body of the lowest of the people. The man was a
+savage at heart, betraying his innate depravity by foolish and useless
+cruelties, and in this way preventing the more educated class of the
+community from joining his ranks.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he contrived to gather about him an army of several thousand men,
+and obtained a considerable number of cannon, with which he soon
+afterwards laid siege to the city of Orenburg. Both Yaitsk and Orenburg
+defied his efforts, but he had greater success in the field, defeating
+two armies in succession. These victories gave him new assurance. He now
+caused money to be coined in his name, as though he were the lawful
+emperor, and marched northward at the head of a large force to meet the
+armies of the state.</p>
+
+<p>His army was destitute of order or discipline and he woefully deficient
+in military skill, yet his proclamation of freedom to the people, and
+the opportunities he gave them for plunder and outrage, strengthened his
+hands, and recruits came in multitudes. The Tartars, Kirghis, and
+Bashkirs, who had been brought against their will under the Russian
+yoke, flocked to his standard, in the hope of regaining their freedom.
+Many of the Poles who had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> banished from their country also sought
+his ranks, and the people of Moscow and its vicinity, who had from the
+first been opposed to Catharine's reign, waited his approach that they
+might break out in open rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>The outbreak had thus become serious, and had Pugatchef been skilled as
+a leader he might have won the throne. As it was, his followers showed a
+fiery valor, and, undisciplined as they were, gave the armies of the
+empire no small concern. Bibikof, who had been sent to subdue them,
+failed through over-caution, and was slain in the field. His
+lieutenants, Galitzin and Michelson, proved more active, and frequently
+defeated the impostor, though only to find him rising again with new
+armies as often as the old ones were crushed, like the fabulous giant
+who sprang up in double form whenever cut in twain.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Galitzin defeated him twice, the last time after a furious battle
+six hours in length. Pugatchef, abandoned by his followers, now fled to
+the Urals, but soon appeared again with a fresh body of troops. Between
+the beginning of March and the end of May, 1774, the rebel chief was
+defeated six or seven times by Michelson, in the end being driven as a
+fugitive to the Ural Mountains. But he had only to raise his standard
+again for fresh armies to spring up as if from the ground, and early
+June found him once more in the field. Defeated on June 4, he fled once
+more to the hills, but in the beginning of July was facing his foes
+again at the head of twenty-two thousand men.</p>
+
+<p>Only the cruelty shown by himself and his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>followers, and his
+ruthlessness in permitting the plunder and burning of churches and
+convents, kept back the much greater hosts who would otherwise have
+flocked to his ranks. And at this critical moment in his career he
+committed the signal error of failing to march on Moscow, the principal
+seat of the old Russian faith which he proposed to restore, and where he
+would have found an army of partisans. He marched upon Kasan instead,
+took the city, but failed to capture the citadel. Here he was making
+havoc with fire and sword, when Michelson came up and defeated him in a
+long and obstinate fight.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image13.jpg" width="600" height="393" alt="THE CITY OF KASAN." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE CITY OF KASAN.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>He now fled to the Volga, wasting the land as he went, burning the crops
+and villages, and leaving desolation in his track. Men came in numbers
+to replace those he had lost, and an army of twenty thousand was soon
+again under his command. With these he surprised and routed a Russian
+force and took several forts on the Volga, while the German colonies of
+Moravians which had been established upon that stream, and were among
+the most industrious inhabitants of the empire, suffered severely at his
+hands. In the town of Saratof he murdered all whom he met.</p>
+
+<p>As an example of the character of this monster in human form, it is
+related that hearing that an astronomer from the Imperial Academy of
+Sciences of St. Petersburg was near by, engaged in laying out the route
+of a canal from the Volga to the Don, he ordered him to be brought
+before him. When the peaceful astronomer appeared, the brutal ruffian
+bade his men to lift him on their pikes "so that he might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> be nearer the
+stars." Then he ordered him to be cut to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>The end of this carnival of murder came at the siege of Zaritzin. Here
+Michelson came up on the 22d of August and forced him to raise the
+siege. On the 24th the insurgents were attacked when in the intricate
+passes of the mountains and encumbered with baggage-wagons, women, and
+camp-followers. Though thus taken at a disadvantage, they defended
+themselves vigorously, the mass of them falling in the mountain passes
+or being driven over the cliffs and precipices. Pugatchef continued to
+fight till his army was destroyed, then made his escape, as so often
+before, swimming the Volga and vanishing in the desert. Only about sixty
+of his most faithful partisans accompanied him in his flight.</p>
+
+<p>Michelson, failing to reach him in his retreat, took care that he should
+not emerge into the cultivated districts. But in the end the Russians
+were able to capture him only by treachery. They won over some of their
+Cossack prisoners, among them Antizof, the nearest friend of the
+fugitive. These were then set free, and sought the desert retreat of
+their late leader, where they awaited an opportunity to take him by
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>This they were not able to do until November. Pugatchef was gnawing the
+bone of a horse for food when his false friends ran up to him, saying,
+"Come, you have long enough been emperor."</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving that treachery was intended, he drew his pistol and fired at
+his foes, shattering the arm of the foremost. The others seized and
+bound him and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> conveyed him to Goroduk in the Ural, the locality of
+Antizof's tribe. Michelson was still seeking him in the desert when word
+came to him that the fugitive had been delivered into Russian hands at
+Simbirsk, and was being conveyed to Moscow in an iron cage, like the
+beast of prey which he resembled in character.</p>
+
+<p>On the way he sought to starve himself, but was forced to eat by the
+soldiers. On reaching Moscow he counterfeited madness. His trial was
+conducted without the torture which had formerly been so common a
+feature of Russian tribunals. The sentence of the court was that he
+should be exhibited to the people with his hands and feet cut off, and
+then quartered alive. With unyielding resolution Pugatchef awaited this
+cruel death, but the sentence, for some reason, was not executed, he
+being first beheaded and then quartered. Four of his principal followers
+suffered the same fate, and thus ended one of the most determined
+efforts on the part of an impostor to seize the Russian throne that had
+ever been known. The undoubted courage of the man was enough to prove
+that he was not Peter III. Had he combined military capacity with his
+daring he could readily have won the throne.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the 5th of January, 1771, began one of the most remarkable events in
+the history of the world, the migration of an entire nation, more than
+half a million strong, with its women and children, flocks and herds,
+and all that it possessed, to a new home four thousand miles away. More
+than once&mdash;many times, apparently&mdash;in the history of the past such
+migrations have taken place. But those were warlike movements, with
+conquest as their aim. This was a peaceful migration, the only desire of
+those concerned being to be let alone. This desire was not granted, and
+death and terror marked every step of their frightful journey.</p>
+
+<p>A century and a half earlier the fathers of these people, the Kalmuck
+Tartars, had left their homes in the Chinese empire and wandered west,
+finding a resting-place at last on the Volga River, in the Russian
+realm. Here they would have been well content to remain but for the arts
+and designs of one man, Zebek-Dorchi by name, who, ambitious to be made
+khan of the tribe, and not being favored in his desires by the Russian
+court, determined to remove the whole Kalmuck nation beyond the reach of
+Russian control.</p>
+
+<p>This was no easy matter to do. Russia had spread to the east until the
+whole width of Asia lay within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> its broad expanse and its boundary
+touched the Pacific waves. To reach China, the mighty Mongolian plain
+had to be crossed, largely a desert, swarming with hostile tribes; death
+and disaster were likely to haunt every mile of the way; and a general
+tomb in the wilderness, rather than a home in a new land, was the most
+probable destiny of the migrating horde.</p>
+
+<p>Zebek-Dorchi was confronted with a difficult task. He had to induce the
+tribesmen to consent to the new movement, and that so quickly that a
+start could be made before the Russians became aware of the scheme.
+Otherwise the path would be lined with armies and the movement checked.</p>
+
+<p>Oubacha, the khan of the Kalmucks, was a brave but weak man. The
+conspirator controlled him, and through him the people. On a fixed day,
+through a false alarm that the Kirghises and Bashkirs had made an inroad
+upon the Kalmuck lands, he succeeded in gathering a great Kalmuck horde,
+eighty thousand in all, at a point out of reach of Russian ears. Here,
+with subtle eloquence, he told them of the oppressions of Russia, of her
+insults to the Kalmucks, her contempt for their religion, and her design
+to reduce them to slavery, and declared that a plan had been devised to
+rob them of their eldest sons. By a skilful mixture of truth and
+falsehood he roused their fears and their anger, and at length he
+proposed that they should leave their fields and make a rapid march to
+the Temba or some other great river, from behind which they could speak
+in bolder language to the Russian empress and claim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> better terms. He
+did not venture as yet to hint at his startling plan of a migration to
+far-off China.</p>
+
+<p>The simple minded Tartars, made furious by his skilful oratory, accepted
+his plan by acclamation, and returned home to push with the utmost haste
+the preparations for their stupendous task. The idea of a migration <i>en
+masse</i> did not frighten them. They were nomads and the descendants of
+nomads, who for ages had been used to fold their tents and flit away.</p>
+
+<p>The Kalmuck villages extended on both sides of the Volga. A large
+section of the horde would have to cross that great stream, and this
+could be done with sufficient speed only when its surface was bridged
+with ice. For this reason midwinter was chosen for the flight, despite
+the sufferings which must arise from the bitter Russian cold, and the
+5th of January was appointed for religious reasons by the leading Lama
+of the tribe. The year had been selected by the Great Lama of Thibet,
+the head of the Buddhist faith, to which the Kalmucks belonged, and to
+whom the conspirator had appealed.</p>
+
+<p>Despite the secrecy and rapidity of the movement, tidings of it reached
+the Russian court. But the Russian envoy who dwelt among the Kalmucks
+was quite deceived by their wiles, and sent word to the imperial court
+that the rumors were false and nothing resembling an outbreak was in
+view. The governor of Astrachan, a man of more sense and discernment,
+sent courier after courier, but his warnings were ignored, and the fatal
+5th of January came without a preventive step being taken by the
+government.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> Then the governor, learning that the migration had actually
+begun, sprang into his sleigh and drove over the Russian snows at the
+furious speed of three hundred miles a day, finally rushing into the
+imperial presence-chamber at St. Petersburg to announce to the empress
+that all his warnings had been true and that the Kalmucks were in full
+flight. Other couriers quickly confirmed his words, and the envoy paid
+for his blindness by death in a dungeon-cell.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the banks of the Volga had been the locality of a remarkable
+event. At early dawn of the selected day the Kalmucks east of the stream
+began to assemble in troops and squadrons, gathering in tens of
+thousands, a great body of the tribe setting out every half-hour on its
+march. Women and children, several hundred thousand in number, were
+placed on wagons and camels, and moved off in masses of twenty thousand
+at once, with escorts of mounted men. As the march proceeded, outlying
+bodies of the horde kept falling in during that and the following day.</p>
+
+<p>From sixty to eighty thousand of the best mounted warriors stayed behind
+for work of ruin and revenge. Their first purpose was to destroy their
+own dwellings, lest some of the weak-minded might be tempted to return.
+Oubacha, the khan, set the example by applying the torch to his own
+palace. Before the day was over the villages throughout a district of
+ten thousand square miles were in a simultaneous blaze. Nothing was
+saved except the portable utensils and such of the wood-work as might be
+used in making the long Tartar lances.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p><p>This was but part of the destruction proposed. Zebek-Dorchi had it in
+view to pillage and destroy all the Russian towns, churches, and
+buildings of every kind within the surrounding district, with outrage
+and death to their inhabitants,&mdash;a frightful scheme, which was
+providentially checked. The day of flight had been selected, as has been
+said, in the worst season of the year, in order that the tribes west of
+the Volga might be able to cross its surface on a thick bridge of ice.
+Yet for some reason&mdash;possibly because of the weakness of the ice&mdash;the
+western Kalmucks failed to join their eastern brethren, and fully one
+hundred thousand of the Tartars were left behind. It was this that saved
+the Russian towns, it being feared by the leaders that such a vengeance
+would be repaid upon their brethren left to Russian reprisal. These
+western Kalmucks little guessed what horrors they were escaping by being
+prevented from joining in the flight.</p>
+
+<p>The migrating horde was not less than six hundred thousand strong, while
+a vast number of horses, camels, cattle, goats, and sheep added to the
+multitude of living forms. The march was a forced one. Every day gained
+was of prime importance, for it was well known that Russian armies would
+soon be in hot pursuit, while the tribes on their line of march,
+hereditary foes of the Kalmucks, would gather from all sides to oppose
+their passage as the news of the flight reached their ears.</p>
+
+<p>The river Jaik, three hundred miles away, must be reached before a day's
+rest could be had. The weather was not severely cold, and the journey
+might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> have been accomplished with little distress but for the forced
+pace. As it was, the cattle suffered greatly, the sheep died in
+multitudes, milk began to fail, and only the great number of camels
+saved the children and the infirm.</p>
+
+<p>The first of the subjects of Russia with whom the Kalmucks came into
+collision were the Cossacks of the Jaik. At this season most of these
+were absent at the fisheries on the Caspian, and the others fled in
+crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was quickly summoned to
+surrender by the Kalmuck khan. The Russian commandant, numerous as were
+his foes, refused, knowing that they must soon resume their flight. He
+had not long to wait. On the fifth day of the siege, from the walls of
+the fort a number of Tartar couriers, mounted on the swift Bactrian
+camels, were seen to cross the plains and ride into the Kalmuck camp at
+their highest speed.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately a great agitation was visible in the camp, the siege was
+raised, and the signal for flight resounded through the host. The news
+brought was that an entire Kalmuck division, numbering nine thousand
+fighting-men, stationed on a distant flank of the line of march, and
+between whom and the Cossacks there was an ancient feud, had been
+attacked and virtually exterminated. The exhaustion of their horses and
+camels had prevented flight, quarter was not asked or given, and the
+battle continued until not a fighting-man was left alive.</p>
+
+<p>The utmost speed was now necessary, for a sufficient reason. The next
+safe halting-place of the Kalmucks was on the east bank of the Toorga&iuml;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+River. Between it and them rose a hilly country, a narrow defile through
+which offered the nearest and best route. This lost, the need of
+pasturage would require a further sweep of five hundred miles. The
+Cossack light horsemen were only about fifty miles more distant from the
+pass. If it were to be won, the most rapid march possible must be made.</p>
+
+<p>For a day and a night the flight went on, with renewed suffering and
+loss of animals. Then a snowfall, soon too deep to journey through,
+checked all progress, and for ten days they had a season of rest,
+comfort, and plenty. The cows and oxen had perished in such numbers that
+it was resolved to slaughter what remained, feast to their hearts'
+content, and salt the remainder for future stores.</p>
+
+<p>At length clear, frosty weather came: the snow ceased to drift, and its
+surface froze. It would bear the camels, and the flight was resumed. But
+already seventy thousand persons of all ages had perished, in addition
+to those slain in battle, and new suffering and death impended, for word
+came that the troops of the empire were converging from all parts of
+Central Asia upon the fords of the Toorga&iuml;, as the best place to cut off
+the flight of the tribes, while a powerful army was marching rapidly
+upon their rear, though delayed by its artillery.</p>
+
+<p>On the 2d of February Ouchim, the much-desired defile, was reached. The
+Cossacks had been out-marched. A considerable body of them, it is true,
+had reached the pass some hours before, but they were attacked and so
+fiercely dealt with that few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> of them escaped. The Kalmucks here
+obtained revenge for the slaughter of their fellows twenty days before.</p>
+
+<p>The road was now open. How long it would continue open was in doubt.
+Word came that a large Russian army, led by General Traubenberg, was
+advancing upon the Toorga&iuml;. He was to be met on his route by ten
+thousand Bashkirs and as many Kirghises, implacable enemies of the
+Kalmucks, from whom they had suffered in past years. The only hope now
+lay in speed, and onward the Kalmucks pressed, their line of march
+marked by the bodies of the dead. The weak, the sick, had to be left
+behind; nothing was suffered to impede the rapidity of their flight.</p>
+
+<p>From the starting-point on the Volga to the halting-ground on the
+Toorga&iuml;, counting the circuits that had to be made, was full two
+thousand miles, much of it traversed in the dead of winter, the cold,
+for seven weeks of the journey, being excessively severe. Napoleon's
+army in its retreat from Moscow suffered no more from the winter chill
+than did this migrating nation. On many a morning the dawning light
+shone on a circle that had gathered the night before around a sparse
+fire (made from the lading of the camels or from broken-up
+baggage-wagons), now dead and frozen stiff as they sat.</p>
+
+<p>But at length the snows ceased to fall, the frost to chill. Spring came.
+March and April passed away. May arrived with its balmy airs. Vernal
+sights and sounds cheered them on every side. During all these months
+they continued their march, and towards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> the end of May the Toorga&iuml; was
+reached and crossed, and the weary wanderers, having left their enemies
+far in the rear, hoped to find comfort and security during weeks of
+rest, and to complete their journey with less of ruin and suffering.
+They little dreamed that the worst of their task had yet to be endured.</p>
+
+<p>During the five months of their wanderings their losses had been
+frightfully severe. Not less than two hundred and fifty thousand members
+of the horde had perished, while their herds and flocks&mdash;oxen, cows,
+sheep, goats, horses, mules, and asses&mdash;had perished, only the camels
+surviving. These hardy creatures had come through the terrible journey
+unharmed, and on them rested all their hopes for the remainder of their
+flight.</p>
+
+<p>But another two thousand miles lay before them, with hostility in front
+and in rear. Should they still go on, or should they return and throw
+themselves on the mercy of the empress? Oubacha, the khan, advised
+return, offering to take all the guilt of the flight upon himself.
+Zebek-Dorchi earnestly urged them to proceed, and not lose the fruit of
+all their suffering. But the people, worn out with the hardships and
+perils of their route, favored a return and a trust in the imperial
+mercy, and this would probably have been determined upon but for an
+untoward event.</p>
+
+<p>This was the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg, the Russian
+general, who, after a long and painful march, had approached within a
+few days' journey of the fugitives about the 1st of June. On his way he
+had been joined by large bodies of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> Kirghis and Bashkir nomads. The
+harsh tone and peremptory demands of the envoys aroused hostile feelings
+among the Kalmuck chiefs. But the main check to negotiations was the
+action of the Bashkirs, who, finding that Traubenberg would not advance,
+left his camp in a body and set off for the Kalmuck halting-place.</p>
+
+<p>In six days they reached the Toorga&iuml;, swam their horses across it, and
+fell in fury upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed over leagues of
+ground in search of pasture and food. Peace at once changed to war. Over
+a field from thirty to forty miles wide, fighting, flight and pursuit,
+rescue and death, went on at all points. More than once were the khan
+and Zebek-Dorchi in peril of death. At one time both were made
+prisoners. But at length, concentrating their strength, they forced the
+Bashkirs to retreat. For two days more the wild Bashkir and Kirghis
+cavalry continued their attacks, and the Kalmuck chiefs, looking upon
+these as the advance parties of the Russian army, felt themselves
+obliged to order a renewal of the flight. Thus suddenly ended their
+hoped-for season of repose.</p>
+
+<p>One event took place during this period of which it is important to
+speak. A Russian gentleman, Weseloff by name, was held prisoner in the
+Kalmuck camp, and had been brought that far on their route. The khan
+Oubacha, who saw no object in holding him, now gave him leave to attempt
+his escape, and also asked him to accompany him during a private
+interview which he was to hold on the next night with the hetman of the
+Bashkirs. Weseloff <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>declined to do so, and bade the khan to beware, as
+he feared the scheme meant treachery.</p>
+
+<p>About ten that night Weseloff, with three Kalmucks who had offered to
+join in his flight, they having strong reasons for a return to Russia,
+sought a number of the half-wild horses of that district which they had
+caught and hidden in the thickets on the river's side. They were in the
+act of mounting, when the silence of the night was broken by a sudden
+clash of arms, and a voice, which sounded like that of the khan, was
+heard calling for aid.</p>
+
+<p>The Russian, remembering what Oubacha had told him, rode off hastily
+towards the sound, bidding his companions follow. Reaching an open glade
+in the wood, he saw four men fighting with nine or ten, one, who looked
+like the khan, contending on foot against two horsemen. Weseloff fired
+at once, bringing down one of the assailants. His companions followed
+with their fire, and then all rode into the glade, whereupon the
+assailants, thinking that a troop of cavalry was upon them, hastily
+fled. The dead man, when examined, proved to be a confidential servant
+of Zebek-Dorchi. The secret was out: this ambitious conspirator had
+sought the murder of the khan.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanying the khan until he had reached a place of safety, Weseloff
+and his companions, at the suggestion of the grateful Oubacha, rode off
+at the utmost speed, fearing pursuit. Their return was made along the
+route the Kalmucks had traversed, every step of which could be traced by
+skeletons and other memorials of the flight. Among these were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> heaps of
+money which had been abandoned in the desert, and of which they took as
+much as they could conveniently carry. Weseloff at length reached home,
+rushed precipitately into the house where his loving mother had long
+mourned his loss, and so shocked her by the sudden revulsion of joy
+after her long sorrow that she fell dead on the spot. It was a sad
+ending to his happy return.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the Kalmuck flight. Two thousand miles still remained to be
+traversed before the borders of China would be reached. All that took
+place in the dreary interval is too much to tell. It must suffice to say
+that the Bashkirs pursued them through the whole long route, while the
+choice of two evils lay in front. Now they made their way through desert
+regions. Now, pressed by want of food, they traversed rich and inhabited
+lands, through which they had to win a passage with the sword. Every day
+the Bashkirs attacked them, drawing off into the desert when too sharply
+resisted. Thus, with endless alternations of hunger and bloodshed, the
+borders of China at length were approached.</p>
+
+<p>And now we have another scene in this remarkable drama to describe. Keen
+Lung, the emperor of China, had been long apprised of the flight of the
+Kalmucks, and had prepared a place of residence for these erring
+children of his nation, as he considered them, on their return to their
+native land. But he did not expect their arrival until the approach of
+winter, having been advised that they proposed to dwell during the
+summer heats on the Toorga&iuml;'s fertile banks.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p><p>One fine morning in September, 1771, this fatherly monarch was enjoying
+himself in hunting in a wild district north of the Great Wall. Here, for
+hundreds of square leagues, the country was overgrown with forest,
+filled with game. Centrally in this district rose a gorgeous
+hunting-lodge, to which the emperor retired annually for a season of
+escape from the cares of government. Leaving his lodge, he had pursued
+the game through some two hundred miles of forest, every night pitching
+his tent in a different locality. A military escort followed at no great
+distance in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning in question the emperor found himself on the margin of
+the vast deserts of Asia, which stretched interminably away. As he stood
+in his tent door, gazing across the extended plain, he saw with
+surprise, far to the west, a vast dun cloud arise, which mounted and
+spread until it covered that whole quarter of the sky. It thickened as
+it rose, and began to roll in billowy volumes towards his camp.</p>
+
+<p>This singular phenomenon aroused general attention. The suite of the
+emperor hastened to behold it. In the rear the silver trumpets sounded,
+and from the forest avenues rode the imperial cavalry escort. All eyes
+were fixed upon the rolling cloud, the sentiment of curiosity being
+gradually replaced by a dread of possible danger. At first the
+dust-cloud was imagined to be due to a vast troop of deer or other wild
+animals, driven into the plain by the hunting train or by beasts of
+prey. This conception vanished as it came nearer, until, seemingly, it
+was but a few miles away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p><p>And now, as the breeze freshened a little, the vapory curtain rolled
+and eddied, until it assumed the appearance of vast aerial draperies
+depending from the heavens to the earth; sometimes, where rent by the
+eddying breeze, it resembled portals and archways, through which, at
+intervals, were seen the gleam of weapons and the dim forms of camels
+and human beings. At times, again, the cloud thickened, shutting all
+from view; but through it broke the din of battle, the shouts of
+combatants, the roar of infuriated hordes in mortal conflict.</p>
+
+<p>It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last stage of misery and
+exhaustion, yet still pursued by their unrelenting foes. Of the six
+hundred thousand who had begun the journey scarcely a third remained,
+cold, heat, famine, and warfare having swept away nearly half a million
+of the fleeing host, while of their myriad animals only the camels and
+the horses brought from the Toorga&iuml; remained. For the past ten days
+their suffering had reached a climax. They had been traversing a
+frightful desert, destitute alike of water and of vegetation. Two days
+before their small allowance of water had failed, and to the fatigue of
+flight had been added the horrors of insupportable thirst.</p>
+
+<p>On came the flying and fighting mass. It was soon evident that it was
+not moving towards the imperial train, and those who knew the country
+judged that it was speeding towards a large freshwater lake about seven
+or eight miles away. Thither the imperial cavalry, of which a strong
+body, attended with artillery, lay some miles in the rear, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> ordered
+in all haste to ride; and there, at noon of September 8, the great
+migration of the Kalmucks came to an end, amid the most ferocious and
+bloodthirsty scene of its whole frightful course.</p>
+
+<p>The lake of Tengis lies in a hollow among low mountains, on the verge of
+the great desert of Gobi. The Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a
+road that led down to the lake at about eleven o'clock. The descent was
+a winding and difficult one, and took them an hour and a half, during
+the whole of which they were spectators of an extraordinary scene below,
+the last and most fiendish spectacle in eight months of almost constant
+warfare.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of the distant hills and forests on that morning, and the
+announcement of the guides that the lake of Tengis was near at hand, had
+excited the suffering host into a state of frenzy, and a wild rush was
+made for the water, in which all discipline was lost, and the heat of
+the day and the exhaustion of the people were ignored. The rear-guard
+joined in the mad flight. In among the people rode the savage Bashkirs,
+suffering as much as themselves, yet still eager for blood, and
+slaughtering them by wholesale, almost without resistance. Screams and
+shouts filled the air, but none heeded or halted, all rushing madly on,
+spurred forward by the intolerable agonies of thirst.</p>
+
+<p>At length the lake was reached. Into its waters dashed the whole
+suffering mass, forgetful of everything but the wild instinct to quench
+their thirst. But hardly had the water moistened their lips when the
+carnival of bloodshed was resumed, and the waters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> became crimsoned with
+gore. The savage Bashkirs rode fiercely through the host, striking off
+heads with unappeased fury. The mortal foes joined in a death-grapple in
+the waters, often sinking together beneath the ruffled surface. Even the
+camels were made to take part in the fight, striking down the foe with
+their lashing forelegs. The waters grew more and more polluted; but new
+myriads came up momentarily and plunged in, heedless of everything but
+thirst. Such a spectacle of revengeful passion, ghastly fear, the frenzy
+of hatred, mortal conflict, convulsion and despair as fell on the eyes
+of the approaching horsemen has rarely been seen, and that quiet
+mountain lake, which perhaps had never before vibrated with the sounds
+of battle, was on that fatal day converted into an encrimsoned sea of
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>At length the Bashkirs, alarmed by the near approach of the Chinese
+cavalry, began to draw off and gather into groups, in preparation to
+meet the onset of a new foe. As they did so, the commandant of a small
+Chinese fort, built on an eminence above the lake, poured an artillery
+fire into their midst. Each group was thus dispersed as rapidly as it
+formed, the Chinese cavalry reached the foot of the hills and joined in
+the attack, and soon a new scene of war and bloodshed was in full
+process of enactment.</p>
+
+<p>But the savage horsemen, convinced that the contest was growing
+hopeless, now began to retire, and were quickly in full flight into the
+desert, pursued as far as it was deemed wise. No pursuit was needed,
+even to satisfy the Kalmuck spirit of revenge. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> fact that their
+enemies had again to cross that inhospitable desert, with its horrors of
+hunger and thirst, was as full of retribution as the most vindictive
+could have asked.</p>
+
+<p>Here ends our tale. The exhausted Kalmucks were abundantly provided for
+by their new lord and master, who supplied them with the food necessary,
+established them in a fertile region of his empire, furnished them with
+clothing, tools, a year's subsistence, grain for their fields, animals
+for their pastures, and money to aid them in their other needs,
+displaying towards his new subjects the most kindly and munificent
+generosity. They were placed under better conditions than they had
+enjoyed in Russia, though changed from a pastoral and nomadic people to
+an agricultural one.</p>
+
+<p>As for Zebek-Dorchi, his attempt on the life of the khan had produced a
+feud between the two, which grew until it attracted the attention of the
+emperor. Inquiring into the circumstances of the enmity, he espoused the
+cause of Oubacha, which so infuriated the foe of the khan that he wove
+nets of conspiracy even against the emperor himself. In the end
+Zebek-Dorchi, with his accomplices, was invited to the imperial lodge,
+and there, at a great banquet, his arts and plots were exposed, and he
+and all his followers were assassinated at the feast.</p>
+
+<p>As a durable monument to the mighty exodus of the Kalmucks, the most
+remarkable circumstance of the kind in the whole history of nations, the
+emperor Keen Lung ordered to be erected on the banks of the Ily, at the
+margin of the steppes, a great monument<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> of granite and brass, bearing
+an inscription to the following effect:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">By the Will of God,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Here, upon the brink of these Deserts,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which from this Point begin and stretch away,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Pathless, treeless, waterless,</span><br />
+For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty Nations,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rested from their labors and from great afflictions</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And by the favor of <span class="smcap">Keen Lung</span>, God's Lieutenant upon Earth,</span><br />
+The Ancient Children of the Wilderness, the Torgote Tartars,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wandering sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Empire in the year 1616,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Hallowed be the spot forever, and</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hallowed be the day,&mdash;September 8, 1771.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 7em;">Amen.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Catharine the Great</span> earned her title cheaply, her patent of greatness
+being due to the fact that she had the judgment to select great generals
+and a great minister and the wisdom to cling to them. Russia grew
+powerful during her reign, largely through the able work of her
+generals, and she forgave Potemkin a thousand insults and unblushing
+robberies in view of his successful statesmanship. Potemkin possessed,
+in addition to his ability as a statesman, the faculty of a spectacular
+artist, and arranged a show for the empress which stands unrivalled amid
+the triumphs of the stage. It is the tale of this spectacle which we
+propose to tell.</p>
+
+<p>Catharine had literary aspirations, one of her admirations being
+Voltaire, with whom she corresponded, and on whom she depended to
+chronicle the glory of her reign. The poet had his dreams, in which the
+woman shared, and between them they contrived a scheme of a modern
+Utopia, a Russo-Grecian city of whose civilization the empress was to be
+the source, and which a decree was to raise from the desert and an idea
+make great. This fancy Potemkin, who stood ready to flatter the empress
+at any price, undertook to realize, and he built her a city in the
+fashion in which cities were built in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> times of the Arabian Nights,
+and made it flourish in the same unsubstantial fashion. The magnificent
+Potemkin never hesitated before any question of cost. Russia was rich,
+and could bleed freely to please the empress's whim. He therefore
+ordered a city to be built, with dwellings and edifices of every
+description common to the cities of that date,&mdash;stores, palaces, public
+halls, private residences in profusion. The buildings ready, he sought
+for citizens, and forcibly drove the people from all quarters to take up
+a temporary residence within its walls. It was his one purpose to make a
+spectacle of this theatrical city to enchant the eyes of the empress. So
+that it had an appearance of prosperity during her visit, he cared not a
+fig if it fell to pieces and its inhabitants vanished as soon as his
+supporting hand was removed. He only required that the scenes should be
+set and the actors in place when the curtain rose.</p>
+
+<p>And the city grew, on the banks of the Dnieper, eighteen million rubles
+being granted by the empress for its cost,&mdash;though much of this clung to
+the bird-lime of avarice on Potemkin's fingers. It was named Kherson.
+The desert around it was erected into a province, entitled by the wily
+minister <i>Catharine's Glory</i> (Slava Ekatarina). Another province,
+farther north, he named after his imperial mistress Ekatarinoslaf. And
+thus, by fraud and violence, a city to order was brought into existence.
+The stage was ready. The next thing to be done was to raise the curtain
+which hid it from Catharine's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was early in the year 1787 that the empress began her journey towards
+her Utopian city, to receive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> the homage of its citizens and to exhibit
+to the world the magnificence of her reign. Great projects were in the
+air. Poland had just been cut into fragments and distributed among the
+hungry kingdoms around. The same was to be done with Turkey. Joseph II.
+of Austria was to meet the empress in Kherson to consult upon this
+partition of the Turkish empire; while Constantine, grand duke of Russia
+and grandson of the empress, was to reign at Byzantium, or
+Constantinople, over the new empire carved from the Turkish realm. Such
+was the paper programme prepared by Potemkin and the empress, the
+minister doubtless smiling behind his sleeve, his mistress in solid
+earnest.</p>
+
+<p>And now we have the story to tell of one of the most marvellous journeys
+ever undertaken. It was made through a thinly inhabited wilderness,
+which to the belief of the empress was to be converted into a populous
+and thriving realm. That the journey might proceed by night as well as
+by day, great piles of wood were prepared at intervals of fifty perches,
+whose leaping flames gave to the high-road a brightness like that of
+day. In six days Smolensk was reached, and in twenty days the old
+Russian capital of Kief, where the procession halted for a season before
+proceeding towards its goal.</p>
+
+<p>As it went on, the whole country became transformed. The deserts were
+suddenly peopled, palaces awaited the train in the trackless wild,
+temporary villages hid the nakedness of the plain, and fireworks at
+night testified to the seeming joy of the populace. Wide roads were
+opened by the army<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> in advance of the cort&eacute;ge, the mountains were
+illuminated as it passed, howling wildernesses were made to appear like
+fertile gardens, and great flocks and herds, gathered from distant
+pastures, delighted the eyes of the empress with the appearance of
+thrift and prosperity as her vehicle drove rapidly along the roads. To
+the charmed eyes of those not "to the manner born" the whole country
+seemed populous and prosperous, the people joyous, the soil fertile, the
+land smiling with abundance. There was no hint to indicate that it was a
+desert covered for the time being by an enamelled carpet.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image14.jpg" width="600" height="353" alt="SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM." title="" />
+<span class="caption">SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Dnieper reached, the empress and her train passed down that river in
+fifteen splendid galleys, with the pomp of a triumphal procession. It
+was now the month of May, and the banks of the river showed the same
+signs of prosperity as had the sides of the road. At Kaidack the emperor
+Joseph met the empress, having reached Kherson in advance and gone north
+to anticipate her coming. He accompanied her down the stream, looking
+with her on the show of prosperity and populousness which delighted her
+inexperienced eyes, and smiling covertly at the delusion which
+Potemkin's magic had raised, well assured that as soon as she had passed
+silence and desertion would succeed these busy scenes. At a new
+projected town on the way, of which Catharine had, with much ceremony,
+laid the first stone, Joseph was asked to lay the second. He did so,
+afterwards saying of the farcical proceeding, "The Empress of Russia and
+I have finished a very important business in a single day: she has laid
+the first stone of a city,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> and I have laid the last." He had no doubt
+that, when they had gone, the buildings in which they had slept, the
+villages which they had seen, the wayside herders and flocks, would
+vanish like theatrical scenery, and the country present the dismal
+aspect of a deserted stage.</p>
+
+<p>At length the new city was reached, the magical Kherson. Catharine
+entered it in grand state, under a noble triumphal arch inscribed in
+Greek with the words "The Way to Byzantium." It was a busy city in which
+she found herself. The houses were all inhabited; shops, filled with
+goods, lined the principal streets; people thronged the sidewalks,
+spectators of the entry; luxury of every kind awaited the empress in the
+capital which had arisen for her as by the rubbing of Aladdin's ring,
+and entertainments of the most lavish character were prepared by the
+potent genius to whom all she saw was due. Potemkin hesitated at no
+expense. The journey had cost the empire no less than seven millions of
+rubles, fourteen thousand of which were expended on the throne built for
+the empress in what was named the admiralty of Kherson.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the scenery prepared for one of the most theatrical events the
+world has ever witnessed. It cost the empire dearly, but Potemkin's
+purpose was achieved. He had charmed the empress by causing the desert
+to "blossom like the rose," and after the spectators had passed all sank
+again into silence and emptiness. The new empire of Byzantium remained a
+dream. Turkey had not been consulted in the project, and was not quite
+ready to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> consent to be dismembered to gratify the whim of empress and
+emperor.</p>
+
+<p>As for the city of Kherson, its site was badly chosen, and its seeming
+prosperity and populousness during the empress's presence quickly passed
+away. The city has remained, but its actual growth has been gradual, and
+it has been thrown into the shade by Odessa, a port founded some years
+later without a single flourish of trumpets, but which has now grown to
+be the fourth city of Russia in size and importance. Of late years
+Kherson has shown some signs of increase, but all we need say further of
+it here is that it has the honor of being the burial-place of the shrewd
+Potemkin, under whose fostering hand it burst into such premature bloom
+in its early days.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> the several nations that made up the Europe of the eighteenth
+century, one, the kingdom of Poland, vanished before the nineteenth
+century began. Destitute of a strong central government, the scene of
+continual anarchy among the turbulent nobles, possessing no national
+frontiers and no national middle class, its population being made up of
+nobles, serfs, and foreigners, it lay at the mercy of the ambitious
+surrounding kingdoms, by which it was finally absorbed. On three
+successive occasions was the territory of the feeble nation divided
+between its foes, the first partition being made in 1772, between
+Russia, Prussia, and Austria; the second in 1793, between Russia and
+Prussia; and the third and final in 1795, in which Russia, Prussia, and
+Austria again took part, all that remained of the country being now
+distributed and the ancient kingdom of Poland effaced from the map of
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Only one vigorous attempt was made to save the imperilled realm, that of
+the illustrious Kosciusko, who, though he failed in his patriotic
+purpose, made his name famous as the noblest of the Poles. When he
+appeared at the head of its armies, Poland was in a desperate strait.
+Some of its own nobles had been bought by Russian gold, Russian armies
+had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> overrun the land, and a Prussian force was marching to their aid.
+At Grodno the Russian general proudly took his seat on that throne which
+he was striving to overthrow. The defenders of Poland had been
+dispersed, their property confiscated, their families reduced to
+poverty. The Russians, swarming through the kingdom, committed the
+greatest excesses, while Warsaw, which had fallen into their hands, was
+governed with arrogant barbarity. Such was the state of affairs when
+some of the most patriotic of the nobles assembled and sent to
+Kosciusko, asking him to put himself at their head.</p>
+
+<p>As a young man this valiant Pole had aided in the war for American
+independence. In 1792 he took part in the war for the defence of his
+native land. But he declared that there could be no hope of success
+unless the peasants were given their liberty. Hitherto they had been
+treated in Poland like slaves. It was with these despised serfs that
+this effort was made.</p>
+
+<p>In 1794 the insurrection broke out. Kosciusko, finding that the country
+was ripe for revolt against its oppressors, hastened from Italy, whither
+he had retired, and appeared at Cracow, where he was hailed as the
+coming deliverer of the land. The only troops in arms were a small force
+of about four thousand in all, who were joined by about three hundred
+peasants armed with scythes. These were soon met by an army of seven
+thousand Russians, whom they put to flight after a sharp engagement.</p>
+
+<p>The news of this battle stirred the Russian general in command at Warsaw
+to active measures.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> All whom he suspected of favoring the insurrection
+were arrested. The result was different from what he had expected. The
+city blazed into insurrection, two thousand Russians fell before the
+onslaught of the incensed patriots, and their general saved himself only
+by flight.</p>
+
+<p>The outbreak at Warsaw was followed by one at Vilna, the capital of
+Lithuania, the Russians here being all taken prisoners. Three Polish
+regiments mustered into the Russian service deserted to the army of
+their compatriots, and far and wide over the country the flames of
+insurrection spread.</p>
+
+<p>Kosciusko rapidly increased his forces by recruiting the peasantry,
+whose dress he wore and whose food he shared in. But these men
+distrusted the nobles, who had so long oppressed them, while many of the
+latter, eager to retain their valued prerogatives, worked against the
+patriot cause, in which they were aided by King Stanislaus, who had been
+subsidized by Russian gold.</p>
+
+<p>To put down this effort of despair on the part of the Poles, Catharine
+of Russia sent fresh armies to Poland, led by her ablest generals.
+Prussians and Austrians also joined in the movement for enslavement,
+Frederick William of Prussia fighting at the head of his troops against
+the Polish patriot. Kosciusko had established a provisional government,
+and faced his foes boldly in the field. Defeated, he fell back on
+Warsaw, where he valiantly maintained himself until threatened by two
+new Russian armies, whom he marched out to meet, in the hope of
+preventing their junction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p><p>The decisive battle took place at Maciejowice, in October, 1794.
+Kosciusko, though pressed by superior forces, fought with the greatest
+valor and desperation. His men at length, overpowered by numbers, were
+in great part cut to pieces or obliged to yield, while their leader,
+covered with wounds, fell into the hands of his foes. It is said that he
+exclaimed, on seeing all hopes at an end, "Finis Poloni&aelig;!" In the words
+of the poet Byron, "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell."</p>
+
+<p>Warsaw still held out. Here all who had escaped from the field took
+refuge, occupying Praga, the eastern suburb of the city, where
+twenty-six thousand Poles, with over one hundred cannon and mortars,
+defended the bridges over the Vistula. Suwarrow, the greatest of the
+Russian generals, was quickly at the city gates. He was weaker, both in
+men and in guns, than the defenders of the city; but with his wonted
+impetuosity he resolved to employ the same tactics which he had more
+than once used against the Turks, and seek to carry the Polish lines at
+the bayonet's point.</p>
+
+<p>After a two days' cannonade, he ordered the assault at daybreak of
+November 4. A desperate conflict continued during the five succeeding
+hours, ending in the carrying of the trenches and the defeat of the
+garrison. The Russians now poured into the suburb, where a scene of
+frightful carnage began. Not only men in arms, but old men, women, and
+children were ruthlessly slaughtered, the wooden houses set on fire, the
+bridges broken down, and the throng of helpless people who sought to
+escape into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> the city driven ruthlessly into the waters of the Vistula.
+In this butchery not only ten thousand soldiers, but twelve thousand
+citizens of every age and sex were remorselessly slain.</p>
+
+<p>On the following day the city capitulated, and on the 6th the Russian
+victors marched into its streets. It was, as Kosciusko had said, "the
+end of Poland." The troops were disarmed, the officers were seized as
+prisoners, and the feeble king was nominally raised again to the head of
+the kingdom, so soon to be swept from existence. For a year Suwarrow
+held a military court in Warsaw, far eclipsing the king in the splendor
+of his surroundings. By the close of 1795 all was at an end. The small
+remnant left of the kingdom was parted between the greedy aspirants, and
+on the 1st of January, 1796, Warsaw was handed over to Prussia, to whose
+share of the spoils it appertained.</p>
+
+<p>In this arbitrary manner was a kingdom which had an area of nearly three
+hundred thousand square miles and a population of twelve millions, and
+whose history dated back to the tenth century, removed from the map of
+the world, while the heavy hand of oppression fell upon all who dared to
+speak or act in its behalf. One bold stroke for freedom was afterwards
+made, but it ended as before, and Poland is now but a name.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> men born for battle, to whose ears the roar of cannon and the clash
+of sabres are the only music, the smoke of conflict their native
+atmosphere, Suwarrow (Suvarof, to give him his Russian name) stands
+among the foremost. A little, wrinkled, stooping man, five feet four
+inches in height and sickly in appearance, he was the last to whom one
+would have looked for great deeds in war or mighty exploits in the
+embattled field. Yet he had the soul of a hero in his diminutive frame,
+and even as a boy the passion for military glory fired his heart, C&aelig;sar
+and Charles XII. of Sweden (from which country his ancestors came) being
+the heroes worshipped by his youthful imagination. Born in 1729, he
+entered the army as a private at seventeen, but rapidly rose from the
+ranks, made himself famous in the Seven Years' War and in the Polish war
+of 1768&ndash;71, and from that time until death put an end to his career was
+almost constantly in the field. Napoleon, against whose armies he fought
+in his later days, was not more enraptured with the breath of battle
+than was this war-dog of the Russian army.</p>
+
+<p>Diminutive and sickly as he looked, Suwarrow was strong and hardy, and
+so inured to hardship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> that the severity of the Russian climate failed
+to affect his vigorous frame. Disdaining luxury, and ignoring comfort,
+he lived like the soldiers under his command, preferring to sleep on a
+truss of hay, and accepting every privation which his men might be
+called on to endure. He was a man of high intelligence, a clever
+linguist, and a diligent reader even when on campaign, and religiously
+seems to have been very devout, being ready to kneel and pray before
+every wayside image, even when the roads were deep with mud.</p>
+
+<p>In his ordinary manners he carried eccentricity to an extravagant
+extent, was brusque and curt in speech, often to the verge of insult,
+laconic in his despatches, and&mdash;a soldier in grain&mdash;treated with
+stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his
+contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the
+Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad thirst for change, the latter
+attempted to change the native dress of the Russian soldier for the
+ancient attire of Germany. His fair locks, which the Russian was used to
+wash every morning, he was now bidden to bedaub with grease and flour,
+while he energetically cursed the black spatterdashes which it took him
+an hour to button every morning. Orders to establish these novelties
+among his men were sent to Suwarrow, then in Italy with the army, the
+directions being accompanied with little sticks for models of the tails
+and side curls in which the soldiers' hair was to be arranged. The old
+warrior's lips curled contemptuously on seeing these absurd devices, and
+he growled out in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> his curt fashion, "Hair-powder is not gunpowder;
+curls are not cannon; and tails are not bayonets."</p>
+
+<p>This sarcastic utterance, which forms a sort of rhyming verse in the
+Russian tongue, got abroad, and spread from mouth to mouth through the
+army like a choice morsel of wit. The czar, to whose ears it came, heard
+it with deep offence. Soon after Suwarrow was recalled from the army, on
+another plea, and on his return to St. Petersburg was not permitted to
+see the emperor's face. This injustice may have been a cause of his
+death, which occurred shortly after his return, on May 18, 1800. No
+courtier of the Russian court, and no diplomatist, except the English
+ambassador, followed the war-worn veteran to the grave.</p>
+
+<p>Suwarrow was the idol of his men, whose favorite title for him was
+"Father Suvarof," and who were ready at command to follow him to the
+cannon's mouth. In all his long career he never lost a battle, and only
+once in his life of war acted on the defensive. With a superb faith in
+his own star, the inspiration of the moment served him for counsel, and
+rapidity of movement and boldness and dash in the onset brought him many
+a victory where deliberation might have led to defeat.</p>
+
+<p>A striking instance of this, and of his usual brusque eccentricity, took
+place in 1799 in Italy, where Suwarrow was placed in command of all the
+allied troops. This raising of a Russian to the supreme command excited
+the jealousy of the Austrian generals, and they called a council of war
+to examine his plans for the campaign. The members of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> council, the
+youngest first, gave their views as to the conduct of the war. Suwarrow
+listened in grim silence until they had all spoken, and had turned to
+him for his comment on their views. The wrinkled veteran drew to himself
+a slate, and made on it two lines.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, gentlemen," he said, pointing to one line, "are the French, and
+here are the Russians. The latter will march against the former and beat
+them." This said, he rubbed out the French line. Then, looking up at his
+surprised auditors, he curtly remarked, "This is all my plan. The
+council is ended."</p>
+
+<p>In war he is said to have been averse to the shedding of blood, and to
+have been at heart humane and merciful. Yet this hardly accords with the
+story of his exploits, it being said that twenty-six thousand Turks were
+killed in the storming of Ismail, while in that of Praga at Warsaw more
+than twenty thousand Poles were massacred.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the character of one of the men who aided to make glorious the
+reign of Catharine of Russia, and whose merit she&mdash;unlike her weak son
+Paul&mdash;was fully competent to appreciate. With this estimate of the
+greatest soldier Russia has ever produced, and one of the ablest
+generals of modern times, we may briefly describe some of the most
+striking exploits of Suwarrow's career.</p>
+
+<p>In 1789, during one of the interminable wars against Turkey, in which on
+this occasion the Austrians took part with the Russians, the Prince of
+Coburg was at the head of an Austrian force, which he was strikingly
+incapable of commanding. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> prince, advancing with sublime
+deliberation, found himself suddenly threatened by a considerable
+Turkish army. Filled with alarm at the sight of the enemy, he sent a
+hasty appeal to Suwarrow to come to his aid.</p>
+
+<p>The Russian general had just rejoined his army after recovering from a
+wound. The news of Coburg's peril reached him at Belat, in Moldavia,
+between forty and fifty miles away, and these miles of mountains,
+ravines, and almost impassable wilds. Suwarrow at once broke camp, and
+with his usual impetuosity led his army over its difficult route,
+reaching the Austrians in less than thirty-six hours after receiving the
+news.</p>
+
+<p>It was five o'clock in the evening when he arrived. At eleven he sent
+his plan of attack to the prince. An assault on the enemy was to be made
+at two in the morning. Coburg, who had never dreamed of such rapidity of
+movement and such impetuosity in action, was utterly astounded. In
+complete bewilderment, he sought Suwarrow at his quarters, going there
+three times without finding him. The supreme command belonged to him as
+the older general, but he had the sense not to claim it, and to act as a
+subordinate to his abler ally. In an hour after the advance began the
+allied armies were in the Turkish camp, and the Turks, though much
+outnumbering their assailants, were in full flight. All their stores, a
+hundred standards, and seventy pieces of artillery fell into the hands
+of the victors.</p>
+
+<p>Suwarrow returned to Moldavia, and Coburg looked quietly on while the
+Turks collected a new army.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> In less than two months he found himself
+confronted by a hundred thousand men. In new alarm, he hastily sent
+again to Suwarrow for aid.</p>
+
+<p>In two days the Russian army had reached the Austrian camp, which the
+enemy was just about to attack. The Turks had neglected to fortify their
+camp before offering battle. Of this oversight the keen-eyed Russian
+took instant advantage, attacked them in their unfinished trenches, and,
+as before, took their camp by storm,&mdash;though after a more stubborn
+defence than in the previous instance. The Turkish army was again
+dispersed, immense booty was taken, and Suwarrow received for his valor
+the title of a count of the Austrian empire, while the empress Catharine
+gave him in reward the honorable surname of Rimniksky, from the name of
+the river on which the battle had been fought.</p>
+
+<p>The next great exploit of Suwarrow was performed at Ismail, a Turkish
+town which Potemkin had been besieging for seven months. The prime
+minister at length grew impatient at the delay, and determined on more
+effective measures. Living in a luxury in his camp that contrasted
+strangely with the sparse conditions of Suwarrow, Potemkin was
+surrounded by courtiers and ladies, who made strenuous efforts to
+furnish the great man with amusement. One of the ladies, handling a pack
+of cards, from which she laughingly pretended to be able to read the
+secrets of destiny, proclaimed that he would be in possession of the
+town at the end of three weeks.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not bad at prediction," said Potemkin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> with a smile, "but I
+have a method of divination far more infallible. My prediction is that I
+will have the town in three days."</p>
+
+<p>He at once sent orders to Suwarrow, who was at Galatz, to come and take
+the town.</p>
+
+<p>The obedient warrior, who seemed to be always at somebody's beck and
+call, quickly appeared and surveyed the situation. His first steps
+seemed to indicate that he proposed to continue the siege, the troops
+being formed into a besieging army of about forty thousand men, while
+the Russian fleet was ordered up to the town. But the deliberation of a
+siege never accorded with Suwarrow's ardent humor. His real purpose was
+to take the place by storm. He had taken Otchakof in this way the
+previous year with heavy loss, and with the slaughter of twenty thousand
+Turks. He now, on the 21st of September, twice summoned the city to
+surrender, threatening the people with the fate of Otchakof. They
+refused to yield, and the assault began at four o'clock of the following
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Battalion after battalion was hurled against the walls: the slaughter
+from the Turkish fire was frightful, but the stern commander hurled ever
+new hosts into the pit of death, and about eight o'clock the summit of
+the walls was reached. But the work was yet only begun. The city was
+defended street by street, house by house. It was noon before the
+Russians, fighting their way through a desperate resistance, reached the
+market-place, where were gathered a body of the Tartars of the Crimea.
+For two hours these fought fiercely for their lives, and after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> they had
+all fallen the Turks kept up the conflict with equal desperation in the
+streets. At length the gates were thrown open and Suwarrow sent his
+cavalry into the city, who charged through the streets, cutting down all
+whom they met. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the butchery
+ended, after which the city was given up for three days to the mercy of
+the troops. According to the official report, the Turks lost forty-three
+thousand in killed and prisoners, the Russians forty-five hundred in
+all; the one estimate probably as much too large as the other was too
+small.</p>
+
+<p>We may conclude with the story of Suwarrow's career in Italy and
+Switzerland against the armies of the French republic. The plan which
+the Russian conqueror had marked out on the slate for the Austrian
+generals was literally fulfilled. In less than three months he had
+cleared Lombardy and Piedmont of the troops of France. He forced the
+passage of the Adda against Moreau and his army, compelling the French
+to abandon Milan, which he entered in triumph. His next success was at
+Turin, a d&eacute;p&ocirc;t of French supplies, towards which Moreau was hastily
+advancing. The Russians took the city by surprise, driving the French
+garrison into the citadel, and capturing three hundred cannons and
+enormous quantities of muskets, ammunition, and military stores. The
+French army was saved from ruin only by the great ability of its
+commander, who led it to Genoa in four days over a mountain path.</p>
+
+<p>The czar Paul rewarded his victorious general with the honorable
+designation of Italienski, or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> Italian, and, in his grandiloquent
+fashion, issued a ukase commanding all people to regard Suwarrow as the
+greatest commander the world had ever known.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot describe the whole course of events. Other victories were won
+in Italy, but finally Suwarrow was weakened by the jealousy of the
+Austrians, who withdrew their troops, and subsequently was obliged to go
+to the relief of his fellow-commander, Korsakof, who, with twenty
+thousand men, had imprudently allowed himself to be hemmed in by a
+French army at Zurich. He finally forced his way through the enemy,
+losing all his artillery and half his host.</p>
+
+<p>Of this Suwarrow knew nothing, as he made his way across the Alps to the
+aid of the beleaguered general. He attempted to force his way over the
+St. Gothard pass, meeting with fierce opposition at every point. There
+was a sharp fight at the Devil's Bridge, which the French blew up, but
+failed to keep back Suwarrow and his men, who crossed the rocky gorge of
+the Unerloch, dashed through the foaming Reuss, and drove the French
+from their post of vantage.</p>
+
+<p>At length, with his men barefoot, his provisions almost exhausted, the
+Russian general reached Muotta, to find to his chagrin that Korsakof had
+been defeated and put to flight. He at once began his retreat, followed
+in force by Mass&eacute;na, who was driven off by the rear-guard. On October 1
+Suwarrow reached Glarus. Here he rested till the 4th, then crossed the
+Panixer Mountains through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine,
+which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> reached on the 10th, having lost two hundred of his men and
+all his beasts of burden over the precipices. Thus ended this
+extraordinary march, which had cost Suwarrow all his artillery, nearly
+all his horses, and a third of his men.</p>
+
+<p>These losses in the Russian armies stirred the czar to immeasurable
+rage. All the missing officers&mdash;who were prisoners in France&mdash;were
+branded as deserters, and Suwarrow was deprived of his command,
+ostensibly for his failure, but largely for the sarcasm already
+mentioned. He returned home to die, having experienced what a misfortune
+it is for a great man to be at the mercy of a fool in authority.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE RETREAT OF NAPOLEON'S GRAND ARMY.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the spring of 1812 Napoleon reached the frontiers of Russia at the
+head of the greatest army that had ever been under his command, it
+embracing half a million of men. It was not an army of Frenchmen,
+however, since much more than half the total force was made up of
+Germans and soldiers of other nationalities. In addition to the soldiery
+was a multitude of non-combatants and other incumbrances, which
+Napoleon, deviating from his usual custom, allowed to follow the troops.
+These were made up of useless aids to the pomp and luxury of the emperor
+and his officers, and an incredible number of private vehicles, women,
+servants, and others, who served but to create confusion, and to consume
+the army stores, of which provision had been made for only a short
+campaign.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, dragging its slow length along, the army, on June 24, 1812,
+crossed the Niemen River and entered upon Russian soil. From emperor to
+private, all were inspired with exaggerated hopes of victory, and looked
+soon to see the mighty empire of the north prostrate before the genius
+of all-conquering France. Had the vision of that army, as it was to
+recross the Niemen within six months, risen upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> their minds, it would
+have been dismissed as a nightmare of false and monstrous mien.</p>
+
+<p>Onward into Russia wound the vast and hopeful mass, without a battle and
+without sight of a foe. The Russians were retreating and drawing their
+foes deeper and deeper into the heart of their desolate land. Battles
+were not necessary; the country itself fought for Russia. Food was not
+to be had from the land, which was devastated in their track. Burning
+cities and villages lit up their path. The carriages and wagons, even
+many of the cannon, had to be left behind. The forced marches which
+Napoleon made in the hope of overtaking the Russians forced him to
+abandon much of his supplies, while men and horses sank from fatigue and
+hunger. The decaying carcasses of ten thousand horses already poisoned
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>At length Moscow was approached. Here the Russian leaders were forced by
+the sentiment of the army and the people to strike one blow in defence
+of their ancient capital. A desperate encounter took place at Borodino,
+two days' march from the city, in which Napoleon triumphed, but at a
+fearful price. Forty thousand men had fallen, of whom the wounded nearly
+all died through want and neglect. When Moscow was reached, it proved to
+be deserted. Napoleon had won the empty shell of a city, and was as far
+as ever from the conquest of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>It is not our purpose here to give the startling story of the burning of
+Moscow, the sacrifice of a city to the god of war. Though this is one of
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> most thrilling events in the history of Russia, it has already been
+told in this series.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> We are concerned at present solely with the
+retreat of the grand army from the ashes of the Muscovite capital, the
+most dreadful retreat in the annals of war.</p>
+
+<p>Napoleon lingered amid the ruins of the ancient city until winter was
+near at hand, hoping still that the emperor Alexander would sue for
+peace. No suit came. He offered terms himself, and they were not even
+honored with a reply. A deeply disappointed man, the autocrat of Europe
+marched out of Moscow on October 19 and began his frightful homeward
+march. He had waited much too long. The Russian armies, largely
+increased in numbers, shut him out from every path but the wasted one by
+which he had come, a highway marked by the ashes of burnt towns and the
+decaying corpses of men and animals.</p>
+
+<p>On November 6, winter suddenly set in. The supplies had largely been
+consumed, the land was empty of food, famine alternated with cold to
+crush the retreating host, and death in frightful forms hovered over
+their path. The horses, half fed and worn out, died by thousands. Most
+of the cavalry had to go afoot; the booty brought from Moscow was
+abandoned as valueless; even much of the artillery was left behind. The
+cold grew more intense. A deep snow covered the plain, through whose
+white peril they had to drag their weary feet. Arms were flung away as
+useless weights, flight was the only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> thought, and but a tithe of the
+army remained in condition to defend the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The retreat of the grand army became one of incredible distress and
+suffering. Over the seemingly endless Russian steppes, from whose
+snow-clad level only rose here and there the ruins of a deserted
+village, the freezing and starving soldiers made their miserable way.
+Wan, hollow-eyed, gaunt, clad in garments through which the biting cold
+pierced their flesh, they dragged wearily onward, fighting with one
+another for the flesh of a dead horse, ready to commit murder for the
+shadow of food, and finally sinking in death in the snows of that
+interminable plain. Each morning, some of those who had stretched their
+limbs round the bivouac fires failed to rise. The victims of the night
+were often revealed only by the small mounds of fallen snow which had
+buried them as they slept.</p>
+
+<p>That this picture may not be thought overdrawn, we shall relate an
+anecdote told of Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. He had fallen asleep in
+the snow, and in order to protect him from the keen north wind four of
+his Hessian dragoons screened him during the night with their cloaks.
+The prince arose from his cold couch in the morning to find his faithful
+guardians still in the position they had occupied during the
+night,&mdash;frozen to death.</p>
+
+<p>Maddened with famine and frost, men were seen to spring, with wildly
+exulting cries, into the flames of burning houses. Of those that fell
+into the hands of the Russian boors, many were stripped of their
+clothing and chased to death through the snow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> Smolensk, which the army
+had passed in its glory, it now reached in its gloom. The city was
+deserted and half burned. Most of the cannon had been abandoned, food
+and ammunition were lacking, and no halt was possible. The despairing
+army pushed on.</p>
+
+<p>Death followed the fugitives in other forms than those of frost and
+hunger. The Russians, who had avoided the army in its advance, harassed
+it continually in its retreat. From all directions Russian troops
+marched upon the worn-out fugitives, grimly determined that not a man of
+them should leave Russia if they could prevent. The intrepid Ney, with
+the men still capable of fight, formed the rear-guard, and kept at bay
+their foes. This service was one of imminent peril. Cut off at Smolensk
+from the main body, only Ney's vigilance saved his men from destruction.
+During the night he led them rapidly along the banks of the Dnieper,
+repulsing the Russian corps that sought to cut off his retreat, and
+joined the army again.</p>
+
+<p>The Beresina at length was reached. This river must be crossed. But the
+frightful chill, which hitherto had pursued the fleeing host, now
+inopportunely decreased, a thaw broke the frozen surface of the stream,
+and the fugitives gazed with horror on masses of floating ice where they
+had dreamed of a solid pathway for their feet. The slippery state of the
+banks added to the difficulty, while on the opposite side a Russian army
+commanded the passage with its artillery, and in the rear the roar of
+cannon signalled the approach of another army. All seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> lost, and
+only the good fortune which had so often befriended him now saved
+Napoleon and his host.</p>
+
+<p>For at this critical moment a fresh army corps, which had been left
+behind in his advance, came to the emperor's aid, and the Russian
+general who disputed the passage, deceived by the French movements,
+withdrew to another point on the stream. Taking instant advantage of the
+opportunity, Napoleon threw two bridges across the river, over which the
+able-bodied men of the army safely made their way.</p>
+
+<p>After them came the vast host of non-combatants that formed the rear,
+choking the bridges with their multitude. As they struggled to cross,
+the pursuing Russian army appeared and opened with artillery upon the
+helpless mass, ploughing long red lanes of carnage through its midst.
+One bridge broke down, and all rushed to the other. Multitudes were
+forced into the stream, while the Russian cannon played remorselessly
+upon the struggling and drowning mass. For two days the passage had
+continued, and on the morning of the third a considerable number of sick
+and wounded soldiers, sutlers, women, and children still remained
+behind, when word reached them that the bridges were to be burned. A
+fearful rush now took place. Some succeeded in crossing, but the fire
+ran rapidly along the timbers, and the despairing multitude leaped into
+the icy river or sought to plunge through the mounting flames. When the
+ice thawed in the spring twelve thousand dead bodies were found on the
+shores of the stream. Sixteen thousand of the fugitives remained
+prisoners in Russian hands.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p><p>This day of disaster was the climax of the frightful retreat. But as
+the army pressed onward the temperature again fell, until it reached
+twenty-seven degrees below zero, and the old story of "frozen to death"
+was resumed. Napoleon, fearing to be taken prisoner in Germany if the
+truth should become known, left his army on December 5, and hurried
+towards Paris with all speed, leaving the news of the disaster behind in
+his flight. Wilna was soon after reached by the army, but could not be
+held by the exhausted troops, and, with its crowded magazines and the
+wealth in its treasury, fell into the hands of the Russians.</p>
+
+<p>During this season of disaster the Austrian and Prussian commanders left
+behind to guard the route contrived to spare their troops.
+Schwarzenberg, the Austrian commander, retreated towards Warsaw and left
+the Russian armies free to act against the French. The Prussians, who
+had been engaged in the siege of Riga, might have covered the fleeing
+host; but York, their commander, entered into a truce with the Russians
+and remained stationary. They had been forced to join the French, and
+took the first opportunity to abandon their hated allies.</p>
+
+<p>A place of safety was at length reached, but the grand army was
+represented by a miserable fragment of its mighty host. Of the
+half-million who crossed the Russian frontier, but eighty thousand
+returned. Of those who had reached Moscow, the meagre remnant numbered
+scarcely twenty thousand in all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF POLAND.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> French revolution of 1830 precipitated a similar one in Poland. The
+rule of Russia in that country had been one of outrage and oppression.
+In the words of the Poles, "personal liberty, which had been solemnly
+guaranteed, was violated; the prisons were crowded; courts-martial were
+appointed to decide in civil cases, and imposed infamous punishments
+upon citizens whose only crime was that of having attempted to save from
+corruption the spirit and the character of the nation."</p>
+
+<p>On the 29th of November the people sprang to arms in Warsaw and the
+Russians were driven out. Soon after a dictator was chosen, an army
+collected, and Russian Poland everywhere rose in revolt.</p>
+
+<p>It was a hopeless struggle into which the Polish patriots had entered.
+In all Europe there was not a hand lifted in their aid. Prussia and
+Austria stood in a threatening attitude, each with an army of sixty
+thousand men upon the frontiers, ready to march to the aid of Russia if
+any disturbance took place in their Polish provinces. Russia invaded the
+country with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, a force
+more than double that which Poland was able to raise. And the Polish
+army was commanded by a titled incapable, Prince Radzivil, chosen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+because he had a great name, regardless of his lack of ability as a
+soldier. Chlopicki, his aide, was a skilled commander, but he fought
+with his hands tied.</p>
+
+<p>On the 19th of February, 1831, the two armies met in battle, and began a
+desperate struggle which lasted with little cessation for six days.
+Warsaw lay in the rear of the Polish army. Behind it flowed the Vistula,
+with but a single bridge for escape in case of defeat. Victory or death
+seemed the alternatives of the patriot force.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image15.jpg" width="600" height="360" alt="RUSSIAN PEASANTS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">RUSSIAN PEASANTS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The struggle was for the Alder Wood, the key of the position. For the
+possession of this forest the fight was hand to hand. Again and again it
+was lost and retaken. On the 25th, the final day of battle, it was held
+by the Poles. Forty-five thousand in number, they were confronted by a
+Russian army of one hundred thousand men. Diebitsch, the Russian
+commander, determined to win the Alder Wood at any cost. Chlopicki gave
+orders to defend it to the last extremity.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle that succeeded was desperate. By sheer force of numbers the
+Russians made themselves masters of the wood. Then Chlopicki, putting
+himself at the head of his grenadiers, charged into the forest depths,
+driving out its holders at the bayonet's point. Their retreat threw the
+whole Russian line into confusion. Now was the critical moment for a
+cavalry charge. Chlopicki sent orders to the cavalry chief, but he
+refused to move. This loss of an opportunity for victory maddened the
+valiant leader. "Go and ask Radzivil," he said to the aides<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> who asked
+for orders; "for me, I seek only death." Plunging into the ranks of the
+enemy, he was wounded by a shell, and borne secretly from the field. But
+the news of this disaster ran through the ranks and threw the whole army
+into consternation.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of the gallant Chlopicki changed the tide of battle. Fiercely
+struggling still, the Poles were driven from the wood and hurled back
+upon the Vistula. A battalion of recruits crossed the river on the ice
+and carried terror into Warsaw. Crowds of peasants, heaps of dead and
+dying, choked the approach to Praga, the outlying suburb. Night fell
+upon the scene of disorder. The houses of Praga were fired, and flames
+lit up the frightful scene. Groans of agony and shrieks of despair
+filled the air. The streets were choked with d&eacute;bris, but workmen from
+Warsaw rushed out with axes, cleared away the ruin, and left the
+passages free.</p>
+
+<p>Inspirited by this, the infantry formed in line and checked the charge
+of the Russian horse. The Albert cuirassiers rode through the first
+Polish line, but soon found their horses floundering in mud, and
+themselves attacked by lancers and pikemen on all sides. Of the
+brilliant and daring corps scarce a man escaped.</p>
+
+<p>That day cost the Poles five thousand men. Of the Russians more than ten
+thousand fell. Radzivil, fearing that the single bridge would be carried
+away by the broken ice, gave orders to retreat across the stream.
+Diebitsch withdrew into the wood. And thus the first phase of the
+struggle for the freedom of Poland came to an end.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p><p>This affair was followed by a striking series of Polish victories. The
+ice in the Vistula was running free, the river overflowed its banks, and
+for a month the main bodies of the armies were at rest. But General
+Dwernicki, at the head of three thousand Polish cavalry, signalized the
+remainder of February by a series of brilliant exploits, attacking and
+dispersing with his small force twenty thousand of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Radzivil, whose incompetency had grown evident, was now removed, and
+Skrzynecki, a much abler leader, was chosen in his place. He was not
+long in showing his skill and daring. On the night of March 30 the Praga
+bridge was covered with straw and the army marched noiselessly across.
+At daybreak, in the midst of a thick fog, it fell on a body of sleeping
+Russians, who had not dreamed of such a movement. Hurled back in
+disorder and dismay, they were met by a division which had been posted
+to cut off their retreat. The rout was complete. Half the corps was
+destroyed or taken, and the remainder fled in terror through the forest
+depths.</p>
+
+<p>Before the day ended the Poles came upon Rosen's division, fifteen
+thousand in number, and strongly posted. Yet the impetuous onslaught of
+the Poles swept the field. The Russians were driven back in utter rout,
+with the loss of two thousand men, six thousand prisoners, and large
+quantities of cannon and arms. The Poles lost but three hundred men in
+this brilliant success. During the next day the pursuit continued, and
+five thousand more prisoners were taken. So disheartened were the
+Russian troops by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> these reverses that when attacked on April 10 at the
+village of Iganie they scarcely attempted to defend themselves. The
+flower of the Russian infantry, the <i>lions of Varna</i>, as they had been
+called since the Turkish war, laid down their arms, tore the eagles from
+their shakos, and gave themselves up as prisoners of war. Twenty-five
+hundred were taken.</p>
+
+<p>What immediately followed may be told in a few words. Skrzynecki failed
+to follow up his remarkable success, and lost valuable time, in which
+the Russians recovered from their dismay. The brave Dwernicki, after
+routing a force of nine thousand with two thousand men, crossed the
+frontier and was taken prisoner by the Austrians, who had made no
+objection to its being crossed by the Russians. And, as if nature were
+fighting against Poland, the cholera, which had crossed from India to
+Russia and infected the Russian troops, was communicated to the Poles at
+Iganie, and soon spread throughout their ranks.</p>
+
+<p>The climax in this suicidal war came on the 26th of May, when the whole
+Russian army, led by General Diebitsch, advanced upon the Poles. During
+the preceding night the Polish army had retreated across the river
+Narew, but, by some unexplained error, had left Lubienski's corps
+behind. On this gallant corps, drawn up in front of the town of
+Ostrolenka, the host of Russians fell. Flanked by the Cossacks, who
+spread out in clouds of horsemen on each wing, the cavalry retreated
+through the town, followed by the infantry, the 4th regiment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> of the
+line, which formed the rear-guard, fighting step by step as it slowly
+fell back.</p>
+
+<p>Across the bridges poured the retreating Poles. The Russians followed
+the rear-guard hotly into the town. Soon the houses were in flames.
+Disorder reigned in the streets. The fight continued in the midst of the
+conflagration. Russian infantry took possession of the houses adjoining
+the river and fired on the retreating mass. Artillery corps rushed to
+the river bank and planted their batteries to sweep the bridges. All the
+avenues of escape were choked by the columns of the invading force.</p>
+
+<p>The 4th regiment, which had been left alone in the town, was in imminent
+peril of capture, but at this moment of danger it displayed an
+indomitable spirit. With closed ranks it charged with the bayonet on the
+crowded mass before it, rent a crimson avenue through its midst, and
+cleared a passage to the bridges over heaps of the dead. Over the
+quaking timbers rushed the gallant Poles, followed closely by the
+Russian grenadiers. The Polish cannon swept the bridge, but the gunners
+were picked off by sharp-shooters and stretched in death beside their
+guns. On the curving left bank eighty Russian cannon were planted, whose
+fire protected the crossing troops.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the bulk of the Polish army lay unsuspecting in its camp.
+Skrzynecki, the commander, resting easy in the belief that all his men
+were across, heard the distant firing with unconcern. Suddenly the
+imminence of the peril was brought to his attention. Rushing from his
+tent, and springing upon his horse, he galloped madly through the
+ranks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> shouting wildly, as he passed from column to column, "Ho!
+Rybinski! Ho! Malachowski! Forward! forward, all!"</p>
+
+<p>The troops sprang to their feet; the forming battalions rushed forward
+in disorder; from end to end of the line rushed the generalissimo, the
+other officers hurrying to his aid. Charge after charge was made on the
+Russians who had crossed the stream. As if driven by frenzy, the Poles
+fell on their foes with swords and pikes. Singing the Warsaw hymn, the
+officers rushed to the front. The lancers charged boldly, but their
+horses sank in the marshy soil, and they fell helpless before the
+Russian fire.</p>
+
+<p>The day passed; night fell; the field of battle was strewn thick with
+the dead and dying. Only a part of the Russian army had succeeded in
+crossing. Skrzynecki held the field, but he had lost seven thousand men.
+The Russians, of whom more than ten thousand had fallen, recrossed the
+river during the night. But they commanded the passage of the stream,
+and the Polish commander gave orders for a retreat on Warsaw, sadly
+repeating, as he entered his carriage, Kosciusko's famous words, "Finis
+Poloni&aelig;."</p>
+
+<p>The end indeed was approaching. The resources of Poland were limited,
+those of Russia were immense. New armies trebly replaced all Russian
+losses. Field-Marshal Paskievitch, the new commander, at the head of new
+forces, determined to cross the Vistula and assail Warsaw on the left
+bank of the stream, instead of attacking its suburb of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> Praga and
+seeking to force a passage across the river at that point, as on former
+occasions.</p>
+
+<p>The march of the Russians was a difficult and dangerous one. Heavy rains
+had made the roads almost impassable, while streams everywhere
+intersected the country. To transport a heavy park of artillery and the
+immense supply and baggage train for an army of seventy thousand men,
+through such a country, was an almost impossible task, particularly in
+view of the fact that the cholera pursued it on its march, and the sick
+and dying proved an almost fatal encumbrance.</p>
+
+<p>Had it been attacked under such circumstances by the Polish army, it
+might have been annihilated. But Skrzynecki remained immovable, although
+his troops cried hotly for "battle! battle!" whenever he appeared. The
+favorable moment was lost. The Russians crossed the Vistula on floating
+bridges, and marched in compact array upon the Polish capital.</p>
+
+<p>And now clamor broke out everywhere. Riots in Warsaw proclaimed the
+popular discontent. A dictator was appointed, and preparations to defend
+the city to the last extremity were made. But at the last moment twenty
+thousand men were sent out to collect supplies for the threatened city,
+leaving only thirty-five thousand for its defence. The Russians,
+meanwhile, had been reinforced by thirty thousand men, making their army
+one hundred and twenty thousand strong, while in cannon they outnumbered
+the Poles three to one.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of affairs in beleaguered Warsaw on that fatal 6th of
+September when the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>Russian general, taking advantage of the weakening
+of the patriot army, ordered a general assault.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak the attack began with a concentrated fire from two hundred
+guns. The troops, who had been well plied with brandy, rushed in a
+torrent upon the battered walls, and swarmed into the suburb of Wola,
+driving its garrison into the church, where the carnage continued until
+none were left to resist.</p>
+
+<p>From Wola the attack was directed, about noon, upon the suburb of
+Czyste. This was defended by forty guns, which made havoc in the Russian
+ranks, while two battalions of the 4th regiment, rushing upon them in
+their disorder, strove to drive them back and wrest Wola from their
+hands. The effort was fruitless, strong reinforcements coming to the
+Russian aid.</p>
+
+<p>Through the blood-strewn streets of the city the struggle continued,
+success favoring now the Poles, now the Russians. About five in the
+afternoon the tide of battle turned decisively in favor of the Russians.
+A shower of shells from the Russian batteries had fired the houses of
+Czyste, within whose flame-lit streets a hand-to-hand struggle went on.
+The famous 4th regiment, intrenched in the cemetery, defended itself
+valiantly, but was driven back by the spread of the flames. Night fell,
+but the conflict continued. The dawn of the following day saw the city
+at the mercy of the Russian host. The twenty thousand men sent out to
+forage were still absent. Nothing remained but surrender, and at nine in
+the evening the news of the capitulation was brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> to the army, to
+whom orders to retire on Praga were given.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended the final struggle for the freedom of Poland. The story of
+what followed it is not our purpose to tell. The mild Alexander was no
+longer on the Russian throne. The stern Nicholas had replaced him, and
+fearful was his revenge. For the crime of patriotism Poland was
+decimated, thousands of its noblest citizens being transported to the
+Caucasus and Siberia. The remnant of separate existence possessed by
+Poland was overthrown, and it was made a province of the Russian empire.
+Even the teaching of the Polish language was forbidden, the youth of the
+nation being commanded to learn and speak the Russian tongue. As for the
+persecution and suffering which fell upon the Poles as a nation, it is
+too sad a story to be here told. There is still a Polish people, but a
+Poland no more.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>SCHAMYL THE HERO OF CIRCASSIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the region lying between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea rise the
+rugged Caucasian Mountains, a mighty wall of rock which there divides
+the continents of Europe and Asia. Monarch of those lofty hills towers
+the tall peak of Elbrus, called by the natives "the great spirit of the
+mountains." Farther east Kasbek lifts its lofty summit, and at a lower
+level the whole jagged line, "the thousand-peaked Caucasus," rises into
+view. Below these a lower range, dark with forests, marks its outline on
+the snowy summits beyond. Fruitful clearings appear to the height of
+five thousand feet on the western slopes; garden terraces mount the
+eastward face, and the valleys, green with meadows or golden with grain,
+are dotted with clusters of cottages. Sheep and goats browse in great
+numbers on the hill-sides; lower down the camel and buffalo feed; herds
+of horses roam half wild through the glades, and from the higher rocks
+the chamois looks boldly down on the inhabited realms below.</p>
+
+<p>In these mountain fastnesses dwells a race of bold and liberty-loving
+mountaineers who have preserved their freedom through all the historic
+eras, yielding only at last, after years of valiant resistance, when the
+whole power of the Russian empire was brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> to bear upon them in
+their wilds. For years the heroic Schamyl, their unconquerable chief,
+braved his foes, again and again he escaped from their toils or hurled
+them back in defeat, and for a quarter of a century he defied all the
+power of Russia, yielding only when driven to his final lair.</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>aoul</i> or village of Himri, perched like an eagle's nest high on
+a projecting rock, this famous chief was born in the year 1797. The only
+access to this high-seated stronghold was by a narrow path winding
+several hundred feet up the slope, while a triple wall, flanked by high
+towers, further defended it, and the overhanging brow of the mountain
+guarded it above. Such is the character of one of the strongholds of
+this mountain land, and such an example of the difficulties its foes had
+to overcome.</p>
+
+<p>There are no finer horsemen than the daring Circassian mountaineers, who
+are ready to dash at full speed up or down precipitous steeps, to leap
+chasms, or to swim raging torrents. In an instant, also, they can
+discharge their weapons, unslinging the gun when at full gallop, firing
+upon the foe, and as quickly returning it to its place. They can rest
+suspended on the side of the horse, leap to the ground to pick up a
+fallen weapon, and bound into the saddle again without a halt. And such
+is the precision of their aim that they are able to strike the smallest
+mark while riding at full speed.</p>
+
+<p>Such were some of the arts in which Schamyl was trained, and in which he
+became signally expert. In the hunt, the trial of skill, all the labors<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+and sports of the youthful mountaineers, he was an adept, and so valiant
+and resourceful that his admiring countrymen at length chose him as
+their Iman, or governor, during the defence of their country against the
+Russian invaders.</p>
+
+<p>The first battle in which Schamyl engaged was behind the walls of his
+native village. Himri, well situated as it was, was hurled into ruin by
+the artillery of the foe, and among its prostrate defenders lay Schamyl,
+with two balls through his body. He was left by the enemy as dead, and
+in after-years the mountaineers looked upon his escape and recovery as
+due to miracle.</p>
+
+<p>Schamyl was thirty-seven years of age when he became leader of the
+tribes. Of middle stature, with fair hair, gray eyes shadowed with thick
+brows, a Grecian nose, small mouth, and unusually fair complexion, he
+was one of the handsomest and most distinguished in appearance of the
+mountaineers. He was erect in carriage, light and active in tread, and
+had a natural nobility of air and aspect. His manner was calmly
+commanding, while his eloquence was at once fiery and persuasive.
+"Flames sparkle from his eyes," says one, "and flowers are scattered
+from his lips."</p>
+
+<p>In 1839 the Russians made one of their most determined efforts to crush
+the resistance of the mountaineers. Schamyl's head-quarters were then at
+Akhulgo, a stronghold perched upon the top of an isolated conical peak
+around whose foot a river wound. Strong by nature, it was well
+fortified, trenches, earthworks, and covered ways now taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> the place
+of those stone walls which the Russian cannon had so easily overturned
+at Himri.</p>
+
+<p>Other fortified works were built on the road to Akhulgo, which was
+retained as a last resort, behind whose defences the mountaineers were
+resolved to conquer or die. Its garrison was composed of the flower of
+the Circassian warriors, while some fifteen thousand men beside stood
+ready to take part in the fight.</p>
+
+<p>In the month of May the Russians advanced, with such energy and in such
+force that the anterior works were soon taken, and the mountaineers
+found themselves obliged to take refuge in their final fortress of
+defence. The fight here was fierce and persistent. Step by step the
+Russians made their way, pushing their parallels against the intrenched
+works of their foes. Point after point was gained, and at length, in
+late August, the crisis came. A sudden charge carried them into the
+fort, and the defenders died where they stood, leaving only women and
+children to fall as prisoners into the Russians' hands.</p>
+
+<p>But Schamyl had disappeared. Seek as they would, the chief was not to be
+found. The fortress, the approaches, every nook and corner, were
+explored, but the famous warrior, for whom his foes would have given
+half their wealth, had utterly vanished, no one knew how. To make sure
+of his death they had scarcely left a fighting man alive, yet to their
+chagrin the redoubtable Schamyl was soon again in the field.</p>
+
+<p>How the brave mountaineer escaped is not known.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> Of the stories afloat,
+one is that he lay concealed until night in a rock refuge, and then
+managed to swim the river while some of his friends attracted the
+attention and drew the fire of the guards. All that can be said is that
+in September he reappeared, ready for new feats of arms, and was seen
+again at the head of a gallant body of mountain warriors.</p>
+
+<p>His head-quarters were now fixed at Dargo, a village in the heart of the
+mountains and in the midst of the primeval forest. But the chief had
+learned a lesson from his late experience. The Circassians were no match
+for the Russians behind fortifications. He resolved in the future to
+fight in a manner better suited to the habits of his followers, and to
+wear out the foe by a guerilla warfare.</p>
+
+<p>Three years passed before the Russians again sought to penetrate the
+mountains in force. Then General Grabbe, the victor at Akhulgo,
+attempted to repeat his success at Dargo. But the experience he gained
+proved to be of a less agreeable type. At the close of the first day's
+march, when the soldiers had eaten their evening meal and stretched
+their limbs to rest after a hard day's march, they were suddenly brought
+to their feet by a rattling volley of musketry from the surrounding
+woods. All night long the firing continued, no great damage being done
+in the darkness, but the soldiers being effectually deprived of their
+rest. When day dawned there was not a Circassian to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>Near noon, as the column wound through a ravine in the forest, the
+firing sharply recommenced, a murderous volley pouring upon the vanguard
+from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>behind the trees. The number of wounded became so great that there
+were not wagons enough for their transportation. Still General Grab be
+kept on, despite the advice of his officers, only to be attacked again
+at night as his weary men lay in a small open meadow among the hills.
+All night long the whiz of bullets drove away repose, and at every step
+of the next day's march the woods belched forth the leaden messengers of
+death.</p>
+
+<p>The goal of the march was near at hand. The little village of Dargo
+could be seen on a distant hill-top. But it was to be reached only by a
+path of death, and the Russian commander was at length forced to give
+the order to retreat. On seeing the column wheel and begin its backward
+march the Circassians grew wild with excitement and triumph. Slinging
+their rifles behind their backs, they rushed, sabre in hand, upon the
+enemy's centre, breaking through it again and again, while a deadly hail
+of rifle-shots still came from the woods. In the end, of the column of
+six thousand, two thousand were left dead, the remainder reaching the
+fortress from which they had set out in sorry plight.</p>
+
+<p>For several years Schamyl made Dargo his head-quarters. Not until 1845
+did the Russians succeed in taking it, their army now being ten thousand
+strong. But it was a village in flames they captured. Schamyl had fired
+it before leaving, and the Russians were so beset in coming and going
+that their empty conquest was made at the cost of three thousand of
+their men.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of the following year the valiant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> chief repaid the enemy
+in part for these invasions of his country. He had now under his command
+no less than twenty thousand warriors, largely horsemen, and in the
+leafy month of May, taking advantage of a weakening of the Russian line,
+he dashed suddenly from the highlands for a raid in the neighboring
+country of the Kabardians.</p>
+
+<p>Two rivers flowed between the mountain ranges and the Kabardas, and two
+lines of hostile fortresses guarded the frontier, containing in all no
+less than seventy thousand men. Between the forts lay Cossack
+settlements, and beyond them the Kabardians, an armed and warlike race.
+Schamyl had no artillery, no fortresses, no d&eacute;p&ocirc;ts of provisions and
+ammunition. All he could do was to make a quick dash and a hasty return.</p>
+
+<p>Down upon the Cossacks he rode, followed by his thousands of daring
+riders. Plundering their villages, he halted to take no forts except
+those that went down in the whirl of his coming. Before the garrisons in
+the strongholds fairly knew that he was among them he was gone; and
+while the Kabardians believed that he was lurking in the mountain
+depths, he suddenly dashed into their midst. Sixty populous Kabardian
+villages were plundered, and the mountaineers proudly refused to turn
+till they had watered their horses in the Kuban and even reached the
+more distant banks of the Laba.</p>
+
+<p>But how were they to return? Thousands of horsemen had gathered in the
+way. Long battalions of infantry had hurried to cut off the raiders on
+their retreat. Schamyl knew that he could not get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> back by the way he
+had come; but, turning southward, he galloped at headlong speed through
+the Cossack settlements in that quarter, and, with his cruppers laden
+with booty and his saddle-bows well furnished with food, evaded his foes
+and reached the mountains again. May seemed to bloom more richly than
+ever as the wild riders dashed proudly back to the doors of their homes
+and heard the glad shouts of joy that greeted their safe return.</p>
+
+<p>The whole story of the exploits of the famous Circassian chief is too
+extended and too full of stirring incidents to be here given even in
+epitome. It must suffice to say, in conclusion, that ten years after his
+escape from Akhulgo that stronghold was again attacked and taken by the
+Russians, and as before Schamyl mysteriously escaped. Completely
+baffled, nothing was left for the Russians but to wear out the chief and
+his people by continued invasions of their mountain land. Again and
+again their armies were beaten by their indomitable foe, but the
+continuance of the struggle slowly exhausted the land and its powers of
+resistance.</p>
+
+<p>The Circassians were helped during the Crimean War by the foes of
+Russia, who supplied them with arms and money, but after that war the
+Russians kept up the struggle with more energy than ever, and, by
+opening a road over the mountains, cut off a part of the country and
+compelled its submission. At length, in April, 1859, twenty-five years
+after the struggle began, Weden, Schamyl's stronghold at that time, was
+taken, after a seven weeks' siege. As before, the chief escaped, but the
+country was virtually<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> subdued, and he had only a small band of
+followers left.</p>
+
+<p>For months afterwards his foes pursued him actively from fastness to
+fastness, determined to run him down, and at length, on September 6,
+1859, surprised him on the plateau of Gounib. Here the devoted band made
+a desperate resistance, not yielding until of the original four hundred
+only forty-seven remained alive. Schamyl, the lion of the Caucasus, was
+at length taken, after having cost the Russians uncounted losses in life
+and money.</p>
+
+<p>With his capture the independence of Circassia came to an end. It has
+since formed an integral part of the Russian empire, and its subjugation
+has opened the gateway to that vast expansion of Russia in Central Asia
+which since then has taken place. The captive chief had won the respect
+of his foes, and was honorably treated, being assigned a residence at
+Kaluga, in Central Russia, with an annual pension of five thousand
+dollars. He, like his countrymen, was a Mohammedan in faith, and removed
+to Mecca, in Arabia, in 1870, dying at Medina in the following year.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Crimean War, brief as was the interval it occupied in the annals of
+time, was one replete with exciting events. And of these much the most
+brilliant was that which took place on the 25th of October, 1854, the
+famous "Charge of the Light Brigade," which Tennyson has immortalized in
+song, and which stands among the most dramatic incidents in the history
+of war. It was truthfully said by one of the French generals who
+witnessed it, "It is magnificent, but it is not war." We give it for its
+magnificence alone.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image16.jpg" width="400" height="622" alt="MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>First let us depict the scene of that memorable event. The British and
+French armies lay in front of Balaklava, their base of supplies, facing
+towards Sebastopol. They occupied a mountain slope, which was strongly
+intrenched. A valley lay before them, and some two miles distant rose
+another mountain range, rocky and picturesque. In the valley between
+were four rounded hillocks, each crowned by an earthwork defended by a
+few hundred Turks. These outlying redoubts formed the central points of
+the famous battle of October 25.</p>
+
+<p>In the early morning of that day the Russians appeared in force,
+debouching from the mountain passes in front of the allied army. Six
+compact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> masses of infantry were seen, with a line of artillery in
+front, and on each flank a powerful cavalry force, while a cloud of
+mounted skirmishers filled the space between. Fronting the line of the
+allies were the Zouaves, crouching behind low earthworks, on the right
+the 93d Highlanders, and in front the British cavalry, composed of the
+Heavy Brigade, under General Scarlett, and, more in advance, the Light
+Brigade, under Lord Cardigan. Such were, in broad outline, the formation
+of the ground and the position of the actors in the drama of battle
+about to be played.</p>
+
+<p>The scene opened with an attack on the advanced redoubts. No. 1 was
+quickly taken, the Turks flying in haste before the fire of the Russian
+guns. No. 2 was evacuated in similar panic haste, the Cossack
+skirmishers riding among the fleeing Turks and cutting them mercilessly
+down. The guns of No. 2 were at once turned upon No. 3, whose garrison
+of Turks fired a few shots in return, and then, as in the previous
+cases, broke into open flight. After them dashed the Cossack light
+horsemen, flanking them to right and left, and many of the turbaned
+fugitives paid for their panic with their lives. The Russians had won in
+the first move of the game. They had taken three of the redoubts before
+a movement could be made for their support.</p>
+
+<p>Next a squadron of the Russian cavalry charged vigorously upon the
+Highlanders. But a deadly rifle fire met them as they came, volley after
+volley tearing gaps through their compact ranks, and in a moment more
+they had wheeled, opened their files,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> and were in full flight. "Bravo,
+Highlanders!" came up an exulting shout from the thousands of spectators
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that Balaklava was the goal of the Russian movement, and
+the heavy cavalry were ordered into position to protect the approaches.
+As they moved towards the post indicated, a large body of the enemy's
+cavalry appeared over the ridge in front. These were <i>corps d'&eacute;lite</i>,
+evidently, their jackets of light blue, embroidered with silver lace,
+giving them a holiday appearance. Behind them, as they galloped at an
+easy pace to the brow of the hill, appeared the keen glitter of
+lance-tips, and in the rear of the lancers came several squadrons of
+gray-coated dragoons as supports. As the serried ranks of horsemen
+advanced, their pace declined from a gallop to an easy trot, and from
+that almost to a halt. Their first line was double the length of the
+British, and three times as deep. Behind it came a second line, equally
+strong. They greatly outnumbered their foe.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident that the shock of a cavalry battle was at hand. The
+hearts of the spectators throbbed with excitement as they saw the Heavy
+Brigade suddenly break into a full gallop and rush headlong upon the
+enemy, making straight for the centre of the Russian line. On they went,
+Grays and Enniskilleners, in serried array, while their cheers and
+shouts rent the air as they struck the Russian line with an impetus
+which carried them through the close-drawn ranks. For a moment there was
+a glittering flash of sword-blades and a sharp clash of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> steel, and
+then, in thinned numbers, the charging dragoons appeared in the rear of
+the line, heading with unchecked speed towards the second Russian rank.</p>
+
+<p>The gallant horsemen seemed buried amid the multitude of the enemy. "God
+help them! they are lost!" came from more than one trembling lip and was
+echoed in many a fearful heart. The onset was terrific: the second line
+was broken like the first, and in its rear the red-coated riders
+appeared. But the first line of Russians, which had been rolled back
+upon its flanks by the impetuous rush, was closing up again, and the
+much smaller force in their midst was in serious peril of being
+swallowed up and crushed by sheer force of numbers.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis was a terrible one. But at the moment when the danger seemed
+greatest, two regiments of dragoons, the 4th and 5th, who had closely
+followed their fellows in the charge, broke furiously upon the enemy,
+dashing through and rending to fragments the already broken line. In a
+moment all was over. Less than five minutes had passed since the first
+shock, and already the Russian horse was in full flight, beaten by half
+its force. Wild cheers burst from the whole army as the victors drew
+back with almost intact ranks, their loss having been very small.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended the famous "Charge of the Heavy Brigade." Its glory was to be
+eclipsed by that memorable "Charge of the Light Brigade" which became
+the theme of Tennyson's stirring ode, and the recital of which still
+causes many a heart to throb. We are indebted for our story of it to
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> thrilling account of W.H. Russell, the <i>Times</i> correspondent, and a
+spectator of the event.</p>
+
+<p>As the Russian cavalry retired, their infantry fell back, leaving men in
+three of the captured redoubts, but abandoning the other points gained.
+They also had guns on the heights overlooking their position. About the
+hour of eleven, while the two armies thus faced each other, resting for
+an interval from the rush of conflict, there came to Lord Cardigan that
+fatal order which caused him to hurl his men into "the jaws of death."
+How it came to be given, how the misapprehension occurred, who was at
+fault in the error, has never been made clear. Captain Nolan, who
+brought the order, was one of the first to fall, and his story of the
+event died with him. All we know is that he handed Lord Lucan a written
+command to advance, and when asked, "Where are we to advance to?" he
+pointed to the Russian line, and said, "There are the enemy, and there
+are the guns," or words of similar meaning.</p>
+
+<p>It is a maxim in war that "cavalry shall never act without a support,"
+that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry guns," and
+that a line of cavalry should have some squadrons in column on its
+flanks, to guard it against a flank attack. None of these rules was
+carried out here, and Lord Lucan reluctantly gave the order to advance
+upon the guns, which Lord Cardigan as reluctantly accepted, for to any
+eye it was evident that it was an order to advance upon death. "Some one
+had blundered," and wisdom would have dictated the demand for a
+confirmation of the order. Valor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> suggested that it should be obeyed in
+all its blank enormity. Dismissing wisdom and yielding to valor, Lord
+Cardigan gave the word to advance, the brigade, scarcely a regiment in
+total strength, broke into a sudden gallop, and within a minute the
+devoted line was flying over the plain towards the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The movement struck Lord Raglan, from whom the order was supposed to
+have emanated, with consternation. It struck the Russians with surprise.
+Surely that handful of men was not going to attack an army in position?
+Yet so it seemed as the Light Brigade dashed onward, the uplifted sabres
+glittering in the morning sun, the horses galloping at full speed
+towards the Russian guns, over a plain a mile and a half in width.</p>
+
+<p>Not far had they gone when a hot fire of cannon, musketry, and rifles
+belched from the Russian line. A flood of smoke and flame hid the
+opposing ranks, and shot and shell tore through the charging troops.
+Gaps were rent in their ranks, men and horses went down in rapid
+succession, and riderless horses were seen rushing wildly across the
+plain. The first line was broken. It was joined by the second. On went
+the brigade in a single line with unchecked speed. Though torn by the
+deadly fire of thirty guns, the brave riders rode steadily on into the
+smoke of the batteries, with cheers which too often changed in a breath
+to the cry of death.</p>
+
+<p>Through the clouds of smoke the horsemen could be seen dashing up to and
+between the guns, cutting down the gunners as they stood. Then,
+wheeling, they broke through a line of Russian infantry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> which sought to
+stay their advance, and scattered it to right and left. In a moment
+more, to the relief of those who had watched their career in an agony of
+emotion, they were seen riding back from the captured redoubt.</p>
+
+<p>Scattered and broken they came, some mounted, some on foot, all
+hastening towards the British lines. As they wheeled to retreat, a
+regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the
+8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rushed at the foe, cutting a passage
+through with great loss. The others had similarly to break their way
+through the columns that sought to envelop them. As they emerged from
+the cavalry fight, the gunners opened upon them again, cutting new lines
+of carnage through their decimated ranks. The Heavy Brigade had ridden
+to their relief, but could only cover the retreat of the slender remnant
+of the gallant band. In twenty-five minutes from the start not a British
+soldier, except the dead and dying, was left on the scene of this daring
+but mad exploit.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Nolan fell among the first; Lord Lucan was slightly wounded;
+Lord Cardigan had his clothes pierced by a lance; Lord Fitzgibbon
+received a fatal wound. Of the total brigade, some six hundred strong,
+the killed, wounded, and missing numbered four hundred and twenty-six.</p>
+
+<p>While this event was taking place, a body of French cavalry made a
+brilliant charge on a battery at the left, which was firing upon the
+devoted brigade, and cut down the gunners. But they could not get the
+guns off without support, and fell back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> with a loss of one-fourth their
+number. Thus ended that eventful day, in which the British cavalry had
+covered itself with glory, though it had only glory to show in return
+for its heavy loss.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the story as it stands in prose. Here is Tennyson's poetic
+version, which is full of the dash and daring of the wild ride.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center">THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+Half a league, half a league,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Half a league onward,</span><br />
+All in the valley of Death<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rode the six hundred.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Forward, the Light Brigade!</span><br />
+Charge for the guns!" he said:<br />
+Into the valley of Death<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Rode the six hundred.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Forward, the Light Brigade!"<br />
+Was there a man dismayed?<br />
+Not though the soldier knew<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Some one had blundered:</span><br />
+Theirs not to make reply,<br />
+Theirs not to reason why,<br />
+Theirs but to do and die,<br />
+Into the valley of Death<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Rode the six hundred.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cannon to right of them,<br />
+Cannon to left of them,<br />
+Cannon in front of them,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Volleyed and thundered;</span><br />
+Stormed at with shot and shell,<br />
+Boldly they rode and well;<br />
+Into the jaws of Death,<br />
+Into the mouth of Hell,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Rode the six hundred.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>Flashed all their sabres bare,<br />
+Flashed as they turned in air,<br />
+Sabring the gunners there,<br />
+Charging an army, while<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the world wondered:</span><br />
+Plunged in the battery-smoke<br />
+Right through the line they broke;<br />
+Cossack and Russian<br />
+Reeled from the sabre-stroke<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shattered and sundered.</span><br />
+Then they rode back, but not&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Not the six hundred.</span><br />
+<br />
+Cannon to right of them,<br />
+Cannon to left of them,<br />
+Cannon behind them,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Volleyed and thundered;</span><br />
+Stormed at with shot and shell,<br />
+While horse and hero fell,<br />
+They that had fought so well<br />
+Came through the jaws of Death,<br />
+Back from the mouth of Hell,<br />
+All that was left of them,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Left of six hundred.</span><br />
+<br />
+When can their glory fade?<br />
+Oh, the wild charge they made!<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the world wondered.</span><br />
+Honor the charge they made!<br />
+Honor the Light Brigade,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Noble six hundred!</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> history of Russia has been largely a history of wars,&mdash;which indeed
+might be said with equal justice of most of the nations of Europe. In
+truth, history as written gives such prominence to warlike deeds, and
+glosses over so hastily the events of peace, that we seem to hear the
+roll of the drum rising from the written page itself, and to see the hue
+of blood crimsoning the printed sheets. This dominance of war in history
+is a striking instance of false perspective. Nations have not spent all
+or most of their lives in fighting, but the clash of the sword rings so
+loudly through the historic atmosphere that we scarcely hear the milder
+sounds of peace.</p>
+
+<p>So far as Russia is concerned, the torrent of war has rolled mainly
+towards the south. From those early days in which the Scythians drove
+back the Persian host and the early Varangians fiercely assailed the
+Greek empire, the relations of the north and the south have been
+strained, and a rapid succession of wars has been waged between the
+Russians and their varying foes, the Greeks, the Tartars, and the Turks.
+For ten centuries these wars have continued, with Constantinople for
+their ultimate goal, yet in all these ten centuries of conflict no
+Russian foot has ever been set in hostility within that ancient city's
+walls.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p><p>Of these many wars, that which looms largest on the historic page is
+the fierce conflict of 1854&ndash;55, in which England and France came to
+Turkey's aid and Russia met with defeat on the soil of the Crimea. We
+have already given the most striking and dramatic incident of this
+famous Crimean war. It may be aptly followed by the final scene of all,
+the assault upon and capture of Sebastopol.</p>
+
+<p>The city of this name (Russian <i>Sevastopol</i>) is a seaport and fortress
+on the site of an old Tartar village near the southwest extremity of the
+Crimea, built by Russia as her naval station on the Black Sea. It
+possesses one of the finest natural harbors of the world, and formed the
+central scene of the Crimean War, the English and French armies
+besieging it with all the resources at their command. For nearly a year
+this stronghold of Russia was subjected to bombardment. Battles were
+fought in front of it, vigorous efforts for its capture and its relief
+were made, but in early September, 1855, it still remained in Russian
+hands, though frightfully torn and rent by the torrent of iron balls
+which had been poured into it with little cessation. But now the climax
+of the struggle was at hand, and all Europe stood in breathless anxiety
+awaiting the result.</p>
+
+<p>On September 5 the fiercest cannonade the city had yet felt was begun by
+the French, the English batteries quickly joining in. All that night and
+during the night of the 6th the bombardment was unceasingly continued,
+and during the 7th the cannons still belched their fiery hail upon the
+town. Everywhere the streets showed the terrible effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> of this
+vigorous assault. Nearly every house in sight was rent asunder by the
+balls. Towards evening the great dock-yard shears caught fire, and
+burned fiercely in the high wind then prevailing. A large vessel in the
+harbor was next seen in flames, and burned to the water's edge. This
+bombardment was preliminary to a general assault, fixed for the 8th, and
+on the morning of that day it was resumed, as a mask to the coming
+charge upon the works.</p>
+
+<p>The Malakoff fort, the key to the Russian position, was to be assaulted
+by the French, who gathered in great force in its front during the
+night. The Redan, another strong fortification, was reserved for the
+British attack. In the trenches, facing the works, men were gathered as
+closely as they could be packed, with their nerves strung to an intense
+pitch as they awaited the decisive word. The hour of noon was fixed for
+the French assault, and as it approached a lull in the cannonade told
+that the critical moment was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>At five minutes to twelve the word was given, and like a swarm of angry
+bees the French sprang from their trenches and rushed in mad haste
+across the narrow space dividing them from the Malakoff. The place, a
+moment before quiet and apparently deserted, seemed suddenly alive. A
+few bounds took the active line of stormers across the perilous
+interval, and within a minute's time they were scrambling up the face
+and slipping through the embrasures of the long-defiant fort. On they
+came, stream after stream, battalion succeeding battalion, each dashing
+for the embrasures, and before the last of the stormers had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> left the
+trenches the flag of the foremost was waving in triumph above a bastion
+of the fort.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians had been taken by surprise. Very few of them were in the
+fort. The destructive cannonade had driven them to shelter. It was in
+the hands of the French by the time their foes were fully aware of what
+had occurred. Then a determined attempt was made to recapture it, and
+the Russian general hurled his men in successive storming columns upon
+the work, vainly endeavoring to drive out its captors. From noon until
+seven in the evening these furious efforts continued, thousands of the
+Russians falling in the attempt. In the end the exhausted legions were
+withdrawn, the French being left in possession of the work they had so
+ably won and so valiantly held.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the British were engaged in their share of the assault. The
+moment the French tricolor was seen waving from the parapet of the
+Malakoff four signal rockets were sent up, and the dash on the Redan
+began. It was made in less force than the French had used, and with a
+very different result. The Russians were better prepared, and the space
+to be crossed was wider, the assaulting column being rent with musketry
+as it dashed over the interval between the trenches and the fort. On
+dashed the assailants, through the abatis, which had been torn to
+fragments by the artillery fire, into the ditch, and up the face of the
+work. The parapet was scaled almost without opposition, the few Russians
+there taking shelter behind their breastworks in the rear, whence they
+opened fire on the assailing force.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p><p>At this point, instead of continuing the charge, as their officers
+implored them to do, the men halted and began loading and firing, a work
+in which they were greatly at a disadvantage, since the Russians
+returned the fire briskly from behind their shelters. Every moment
+reinforcements rushed in from the town and added to the weight of the
+enemy's fire. The assailants were falling rapidly, particularly the
+officers, who were singled out by their foes.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour and a half the struggle continued. By that time the Russians
+had cleared the Redan, but the British still held the parapets. Then a
+rush from within was made, and the assailants were swept back and driven
+through the embrasures or down the face of the parapet into the ditch,
+where their foes followed them with the bayonet.</p>
+
+<p>A short, sharp, and bloody struggle here took place. Step by step the
+band of Britons was forced back by the enemy, those who fled for the
+trenches having to run the gauntlet of a hot fire, those who remained
+having to defend themselves against four times their force. The attempt
+had hopelessly failed, and of those in the assailing column
+comparatively few escaped. The day's work had been partly a success and
+partly a failure. The French had succeeded in their assault. The English
+had failed in theirs, and lost heavily in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>What the final result was to be no one could tell. Silence followed the
+day's struggle, and night fell upon a comparatively quiet scene. About
+eleven o'clock a new act in the drama began, with a terrific explosion
+that shook the ground like an earthquake.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> By midnight several other
+explosions vibrated through the air. Here and there flames were seen,
+half hidden by the cloud of dust which rose before the strong wind. As
+the night waned, the fires grew and spread, while tremendous explosions
+from time to time told of startling events taking place in the town.
+What was going on under the shroud of night? The early dawn solved the
+mystery. The Russians were abandoning the city they had so long and so
+gallantly held.</p>
+
+<p>The Malakoff was the key of their position. Its loss had made the city
+untenable. The failure of the attempt to recover it was followed by
+immediate preparations for evacuation. The gray light of the coming day
+showed a stream of soldiers marching across the bridge to the north
+side. The fleet had disappeared. It lay sunk in the harbor's depths.</p>
+
+<p>The retreat had begun at eight o'clock of the evening before, soon after
+the failure to retake the Malakoff. But it was a Moscow the Russian
+general proposed to leave his foes. Combustibles had been stored in the
+principal houses. About two o'clock flames began to rise from these, and
+at the same hour all the vessels of the fleet except the steamers were
+scuttled and sunk. The steamers were retained to aid in carrying off the
+stores. A terrific explosion behind the Redan at four o'clock shook the
+whole camp. Four others equally startling followed. Battery after
+battery was hurled into the air by the explosion of the magazines.
+Before seven o'clock the last of the Russians had crossed the bridge to
+the north side, which was uninvested by the allies, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> the hill-sides
+opposite the city were alive with troops. Smaller explosions followed.
+From a steamer in the harbor clouds of dense smoke arose. Flames spread
+rapidly, and by ten o'clock the whole city was in a blaze, while vast
+columns of smoke rose far into the skies, lurid in the glare of the
+flames below. The sounds of battle had ceased. Those of conflagration
+and ruin succeeded. The final flames were those sent up from the
+steamers, which were set on fire when the work of transporting stores
+had ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the surprise throughout the camp that Sunday morning when the
+news spread that Sebastopol was on fire and the enemy in full retreat.
+Most of the soldiers, worn out with their desperate day's work, slept
+through the explosions and woke to learn that the city so long fought
+for was at last theirs&mdash;or so much of it as the flames were likely to
+leave.</p>
+
+<p>About midnight, attracted by the dead silence, some volunteers had crept
+into an embrasure of the Redan and found the place deserted by the foe.
+As soon as dawn appeared, the French Zouaves began to steal from their
+trenches into the burning town, heedless of the flames, the explosions,
+and the danger of being shot by some lurking foe, the desire for plunder
+being stronger in their minds than dread of danger. Soon the red
+uniforms of these daring marauders could be seen in the streets,
+revealed by the flames, and the day had but fairly dawned when men came
+staggering back laden with spoils, Russian relics being offered for sale
+in the camps while the Russian columns were still marching from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+deserted city. The sailors were equally alert, and could soon be seen
+bearing more or less worthless lumber from the streets, often useless
+stuff which they had risked their lives to gain.</p>
+
+<p>The allies had won a city in ruins; but they had defeated the Russians
+at every encounter, in field and in fort, and the Muscovite resources
+were exhausted. The war must soon cease. What followed was to complete
+the destruction which the torch had began. The splendid docks which
+Russia had constructed at immense cost were mined and blown up. The
+houses which had escaped the fire were robbed of doors, windows, and
+furniture to add to the comfort of the huts which were built for winter
+quarters by the troops. As for the scene of ruin, disaster, and death
+within the city, it was frightful, and it was evident that the Russians
+had clung to it with a death-grip until it was impossible to remain. It
+was an absolute ruin from which the Sebastopol of to-day began its
+growth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">From</span> the days of Rurik down, a single desire&mdash;a single passion, we may
+say&mdash;has had a strong hold upon the Russian heart, the desire to possess
+Constantinople, that grand gate-city between Europe and Asia, with its
+control of the avenue to the southern seas. While it continued the
+capital of the Greek empire it was more than once assailed by Russian
+armies. After it became the metropolis of the Turkish dominion renewed
+attempts were made. But Greek and Turk alike valiantly held their own,
+and the city of the straits defied its northern foes. Through the
+centuries war after war with Turkey was fought, the possession of
+Constantinople their main purpose, but the Moslem clung to his capital
+with fierce pertinacity, and not until the year 1878 did he give way and
+a Russian army set eyes on the city so long desired.</p>
+
+<p>In 1875 an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two
+Christian provinces under Turkish rule. The rebellious sentiment spread
+to Bulgaria, and in 1876 Turkey began a policy of repression so cruel as
+to make all Europe quiver with horror. Thousands of its most savage
+soldiery were let loose upon the Christian populations south of the
+Balkans, with full license to murder and burn, and a frightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> carnival
+of torture and massacre began. More than a hundred towns were destroyed,
+and their inhabitants treated with revolting inhumanity. In the month of
+June, 1876, about forty thousand Bulgarians, of all ages and sexes, were
+put to death, many of the children being sold as slaves in the Turkish
+cities.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the powers of Europe, Russia was the only one that took arms to
+avenge these slaughtered populations. England stood impassive, the other
+nations held aloof, but Alexander II. called out his troops, and once
+more the Russian battalions were set <i>en route</i> for the Danube, with
+Constantinople as their ultimate goal.</p>
+
+<p>In June, 1877, the Danube was crossed and the Russian host entered
+Bulgaria, the Turks retiring as they advanced. But the march of invasion
+was soon arrested. The Balkan Mountains, nature's line of defence for
+Turkey, lay before the Russian troops, and on the high-road to its
+passes stood the town of Plevna, a fortress which must be taken before
+the mountains could safely be crossed. The works were very strong, and
+behind them lay Osman Pacha, one of the boldest and bravest of the
+Turkish soldiers, with a gallant little army under his command. The
+defence of this city was the central event of the war. From July to
+September the Russians sought its capture, making three desperate
+assaults, all of which were repulsed. In October the city was invested
+with an army of forty thousand men, under the intrepid General
+Skobeleff, with a determination to win. But Osman held out with all his
+old stubbornness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> and continued his unflinching defence until
+starvation forced him to yield. He had lost his city, but had held back
+the Russian army for nearly half a year and won the admiration of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of Plevna set free the large Russian army that had been tied up
+by its siege. What should be done with these troops, more than one
+hundred thousand strong? The Balkans, whose gateways Plevna had closed,
+now lay open before them, but winter was at hand, winter with its frosts
+and snows. An attempt to cross the mountains at this time, even if
+successful, would bring them before strong Turkish fortresses in
+midwinter, with a chain of mountains in the rear, over which it would be
+impossible to maintain a line of supplies. The prudent course would have
+been to put the men into winter quarters at the foot of the Balkans on
+the north and wait for spring before venturing upon the mountain passes.</p>
+
+<p>The Grand Duke Nicholas, however, was not governed by such
+considerations of prudence, but determined, at all hazards, to strike
+the Turks before they had time to reorganize and recuperate. The army
+was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the
+Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements
+is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold,
+the deep snow, the natural difficulties of the passes, the efforts of
+the enemy, all failed to check the Russian advance. Gourko forced his
+way through all opposition, took the powerful fortress of Sophia without
+a blow, and routed an army<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> of fifty thousand men on his march to
+Philippopolis. Radetzky did even better, since he captured the Turkish
+army defending the Shipka Pass, thirty-six thousand strong. The whole
+Turkish defence of the Balkans had gone down with a crash, and the
+Russians found themselves on the south side of the mountains with the
+enemy everywhere on the retreat, a broken and demoralized host.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile what had become of the Turkish population of the Balkans and
+Roumelia? There were none of them to be seen; no fugitives were passed;
+not a Turk was visible in Sophia; the whole region traversed up to
+Philippopolis seemed to have only a Christian population. But on leaving
+the last-named city the situation changed, and a terrible scene of
+bloodshed, death, and misery met the eyes of the marching hosts. It was
+now easy to see what had become of the Turks: they were here in
+multitudes in full flight for their lives. The Bulgarians had avenged
+themselves bitterly on their late oppressors. Dead bodies of men and
+animals, broken carts, heaps of abandoned household goods, and tatters
+of clothing seemed to mark every step of the way. Fierce and terrible
+had been the struggle, dreadful the result, Turks and Bulgarians lying
+thickly side by side in death. Here appeared the bodies of Bulgarian
+peasants horrible with gaping wounds and mutilations, the marks of
+Turkish vengeance; there beside them lay corpses of dignified old Turks,
+their white beards stained with their blood.</p>
+
+<p>While the men had died from violence, the women and children had
+perished from cold and hunger,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> many of them being frozen to death, the
+faces and tiny hands of dead children visible through the shrouding
+snows. The living were dragging their slow way onward through this
+ghastly array of the dead, in a seemingly endless procession of wagons,
+drawn by half starved oxen, and bearing sick and feeble human beings and
+loads of household goods. Beside the laden vehicles the wretched,
+famine-stricken, worn-out fugitives walked, pushing forward in unceasing
+fear of their merciless Bulgarian foes.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on the scene grew even more terrible. The road was strewn with
+discarded bedding, carpets, and other household goods. In one village
+were visible the bodies of some Turkish soldiers whom the Bulgarians had
+stoned to death, the corpses half covered with the heaps of stones and
+bricks which had been hurled at them.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this was reached a vast mass of closely packed wagons extending
+widely over roads and fields, not fewer than twenty thousand in all. The
+oxen were still in the yokes, but the people had vanished, and Bulgarian
+plunderers were helping themselves unresisted to the spoil. The great
+company, numbering fully two hundred thousand, had fled in terror to the
+mountains from some Russian cavalry who had been fired upon by the
+escort of the fugitives and were about to fire in return. Abandoning
+their property, the able-bodied had fled in panic fear, leaving the old,
+the sick, and the infants to perish in the snow, and their cherished
+effects to the hands of Bulgarian pilferers.</p>
+
+<p>In advance lay Adrianople, the ancient capital of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> Turkey and the second
+city in the empire. Here, if anywhere, the Turks should have made a
+stand. But news came that this stronghold had been abandoned by its
+garrison, that the wildest panic prevailed, and that the Turkish
+population of the city and the surrounding villages was in full flight.
+At daylight of the 20th of January the city was entered by the cavalry,
+and on the 22d Skobeleff marched in with his infantry, at once
+despatching the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The defence
+of Adrianople had been well provided for by an extensive system of
+earthworks, but not an effort was made to hold it, and an incredible
+panic seemed everywhere to have seized the Turks.</p>
+
+<p>Russia had almost accomplished the task for which it had been striving
+during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks
+still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every
+shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, and their powers
+of resistance to be at an end. They were in a state of utter
+demoralization and ready to give way to Russia at all points and accept
+almost any terms they could obtain. Had they decided to continue the
+fight, they still possessed a position famous for its adaptation to
+defence, behind which it was possible to hold at bay all the power of
+Russia.</p>
+
+<p>This was the celebrated position of Buyak-Tchek-medje, a defensive line
+twenty-five miles from Constantinople and of remarkable military
+strength. The peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora is
+at this point only twenty miles wide,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> and twelve of these miles are
+occupied by broad lakes which extend inland from either shore. Of the
+remaining distance, about half is made up of swamps which are almost or
+quite impassable, while dense and difficult thickets occupy the rest of
+the line. Behind this stretch of lake, swamp, and thicket there extends
+from sea to sea a ridge from four hundred to seven hundred feet in
+height, the whole forming a most admirable position for defence. This
+ridge had been fortified by the Turks with redoubts, trenches, and
+rifle-pits, which, fully garrisoned and mounted with guns, might have
+proved impregnable to the strongest force. The thirty thousand men
+within them could have given great trouble to the whole Russian army,
+and double that number might have completely arrested its march. Yet
+this great natural stronghold was given up without a blow, signed away
+with a stroke of the pen.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image17.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>On January 31 an armistice was signed, one of whose terms was that this
+formidable defensive line should be evacuated by the Turks, who were to
+retire to an inner line, while the Russians were to occupy a position
+about ten miles distant. It was no consideration for Turkey that now
+kept the Russians outside the great capital, but dread of the powers of
+Europe, which jealously distrusted an increase of the power of Russia,
+and were bent on saving Turkey from the hands of the czar.</p>
+
+<p>On February 12 an event took place that threatened ominous results. The
+British fleet forced the passage of the Dardanelles and moved upon
+Constantinople, on the pretence of protecting the lives of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> British
+subjects in that city. As soon as news of this movement reached St.
+Petersburg the emperor telegraphed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, giving
+him authority to march a part of his army into Constantinople, on the
+same plea that the British had made. In response the grand duke demanded
+of the sultan the right to occupy a part of the environs of his capital
+with Russian soldiers, the negotiations ending with the permission to
+occupy the village of San Stefano, on the Sea of Marmora, about six
+miles from the walls of the threatened city.</p>
+
+<p>What would be the end of it all was difficult to foresee. On the waters
+of the city floated the English iron-clads, with their mute threat of
+war; around the walls Turkish troops were rapidly throwing up
+earthworks; leading officers in the Russian army chafed at the thought
+of stopping so near their longed-for goal, and burned with the desire to
+make a final end of the empire of the Turks and add Constantinople to
+the dominions of the czar. Yet though thus, as it were, on the edge of a
+volcano, their ordinary policy of delay and hesitation was shown by the
+Turkish diplomats, and the treaty of peace was not concluded and signed
+until the 3d of March. The Russians had used their controlling position
+with effect, and the treaty largely put an end to Turkish dominion in
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>The news of the signing was received with cheers of enthusiasm by the
+Russian army, drawn up on the shores of the inland sea, the
+Preobrajensky, the famous regiment of Peter the Great, holding the post
+of honor. Scarce a rifle-shot distant, crowding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> in groups the crests of
+the neighboring hills, and deeply interested spectators of the scene,
+appeared numbers of their late opponents. The news received, the
+cheering battalions wheeled into column, and past the grand duke went
+the army in rapid review, the march still continuing after darkness had
+descended on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>And thus ended the war, with the Russians within sight of the walls of
+that city which for so many centuries they had longed and struggled to
+possess. Only for the threatening aspect of the powers of Europe the
+Ottoman empire would have ended then and there, and the Turk, "encamped
+in Europe," would have ended forever his rule over Christian realms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1861 Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, signed a proclamation for the
+emancipation of the Russian serfs, giving freedom by a stroke of the pen
+to over fifty millions of human beings. In 1881, twenty years
+afterwards, when, as there is some reason to believe, he was about to
+grant a constitution and summon a parliament for the political
+emancipation of the Russian people, he fell victim to a band of
+revolutionists, and the thought of granting liberty to his people
+perished with him.</p>
+
+<p>This assassination was the work of the secret society known as the
+Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to
+saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and
+their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies <i>nothingness</i>. It comes from
+the same root as <i>annihilate</i>, and annihilation of despots appears to
+have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This
+society reached its culmination in the reign of Alexander II., and,
+despite the fact that he proved himself one of the mildest and most
+public-spirited of the czars, he was chosen as the victim of the theory
+of obtaining political regeneration by terror.</p>
+
+<p>Threats preceded deeds. The final years of the emperor's life were made
+wretched through fear and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> anxiety. His ministers were killed by the
+revolutionists. Some of the guards placed about his person became
+victims of the secret band. Letters bordered with black and threatening
+the emperor's life were found among his papers or his clothes. An
+explosive powder placed in his handkerchief injured his sight for a
+time; a box of asthma pills sent him proved to contain a small but
+dangerous infernal machine. He grew haggard through this constant peril;
+his hair whitened, his form shrank, his nerves were unstrung.</p>
+
+<p>In February, 1879, Prince Krapotkin, governor-general of Kharkoff, was
+killed by a pistol-shot fired into his carriage window. In April a
+Nihilist fired five pistol-shots at the czar. In June the Nihilists
+resolved to use dynamite with the purpose of destroying the
+governors-general of several provinces and the czar and heir-apparent.
+Among their victims was the chief of police, while two of his successors
+barely escaped death.</p>
+
+<p>The first attempt to kill the czar by dynamite took the form of
+excavating mines under three railroads on one of which he was expected
+to travel. Of these mines only one was exploded. A house on the Moscow
+railroad, not far from that city, was purchased by the conspirators, and
+an underground passage excavated from its cellar to the roadway. Here
+auger-holes were bored upward in which were inserted iron pipes
+communicating with dynamite stored below. On the day when the emperor
+was expected to pass, a woman Nihilist named Sophia Perovskya stood
+within view of the track, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>instructions to wave her handkerchief to
+the conspirators in the house at the proper moment. The pilot train
+which always preceded the imperial train was allowed to pass. The other
+train drew up to take water, and was wrecked by the explosion of the
+mine. Fortunately for the emperor, he was in the pilot train and out of
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the participants in this affair were arrested, but their chief,
+a German named Hartmann, escaped. Despite the utmost efforts of the
+police, he made his way safely out of Russia, aided by Nihilists at
+every step, sometimes travelling on foot, at other times in peasants'
+carts, finally crossing the frontier and reaching the nest of
+conspirators at Geneva. Here he is supposed to have taken part with
+others in devising a new and what proved a fatal plot. Meanwhile a fresh
+attempt was made on the life of the czar.</p>
+
+<p>On February 5, 1880, Alexander II. was to entertain at dinner in the
+Winter Palace a royal visitor, Prince Alexander of Hesse. Fortunately,
+the czar was detained for a short time, and the hour fixed for the
+dinner had passed when the party proceeded along the corridor to the
+dining-hall. The brief delay probably saved their lives, for at that
+moment a tremendous explosion took place, wrecking the dining-hall and
+completely demolishing the guard-room, which was filled with dead and
+dying victims, sixty-seven in all. It proved that a Nihilist had
+obtained employment among some carpenters engaged in repairs within the
+palace, and had succeeded in storing dynamite in a tool-chest in his
+room. He escaped,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and was never seen in St. Petersburg again. Two days
+later the corpse of a murdered policeman was found on the frozen surface
+of the Neva, a paper pinned to his breast threatening with death every
+governor-general except Melikoff, the successor of the murdered
+Krapotkin.</p>
+
+<p>Their failures had proved so nearly successes that the Nihilists were
+rather encouraged than depressed. New plans followed the failure of old
+ones. It was proposed to poison the emperor and his son, the murder to
+be followed by a revolt of the disaffected in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
+the seizure of the palaces, and the establishment of a constitutional
+government. This plan, however, was given up as not likely to have the
+"<i>great moral effect</i>" which the Nihilists hoped to produce.</p>
+
+<p>A Nihilist student in St. Petersburg had sent to the Paris committee of
+the society a recipe for a formidable explosive of his invention. A
+quantity of this dangerous substance was manufactured in France and
+secretly conveyed to St. Petersburg, where bombs to contain it had been
+prepared. The plans of the conspirators were now very carefully laid.
+They did not propose to fail again, if care could insure success. A
+cheesemonger's shop was opened on a street leading to the palace, under
+which a mine was laid to the centre of the carriage-way, it being
+proposed to kill the czar when out driving. If his carriage should take
+another route and follow the street leading from the Catharine Canal, it
+was arranged to wreck it with bombs flung by hand. The death of the czar
+was the sole thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> in view. The conspirators seemed willing freely to
+sacrifice their own lives to that object. As regards the mine, it was so
+heavily charged with dynamite that its explosion would have wrecked a
+great part of the Anitchkoff Palace while killing the czar.</p>
+
+<p>How the explosive material was conveyed from Paris to Russia is a
+mystery which was never successfully traced by the police. The utmost
+care was taken at the frontiers to prevent the entrance of any
+suspicious substance. For a year or two even the tea that came on the
+backs of camels from China was carefully searched, while all travellers
+were closely examined, and all articles coming from Western Europe were
+almost pulled to pieces in the minuteness of the scrutiny. The explosive
+is said to have looked like golden syrup, and to have been sweet to the
+taste, though acrid in its after-effects. A drop or two let fall on a
+hot stove flashed up in a brilliant sheet of flame, though without smell
+or noise.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 395px;">
+<img src="images/image18.jpg" width="395" height="643" alt="THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST." title="" />
+<span class="caption">THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Among the conspirators, one of the most useful was Sophia Perovskya, the
+woman already named. She was young, of noble family, handsome, educated,
+and fascinating in manner. Her beauty and high connections gave her
+opportunities which none of her fellow-conspirators enjoyed, and by her
+influence over men of rank and position she was enabled to learn many of
+the secrets of the court and to become familiar with all the precautions
+taken by the police to insure the safety of the czar. There was another
+woman in the plot, a Jewish girl named Hesse Helfman. Eight men
+constituted the remainder of the party.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p><p>The fatal day came in March, 1881. On the morning of the 12th Melikoff,
+minister of the interior, told the czar that a man connected with the
+railroad explosion had just been arrested, on whose person were found
+papers indicating a new plot. He earnestly entreated Alexander to avoid
+exposing himself. On the next morning the czar went early to mass, and
+subsequently accompanied his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, to inspect
+his body-guard. Sophia Perovskya had been apprised of these intended
+movements, and informed the chief conspirators, who at once determined
+that the deed should be done that day. The lover of Hesse Helfman had
+been arrested and had at once shot himself. Papers of an incriminating
+character had been found in her house, and it was feared that further
+delay might frustrate the plot, so that the purpose of waiting until the
+czar and his son might be slain together was abandoned. It was not known
+which street the czar would take. If he took the one, the mine was to be
+exploded; if the other, the bombs were to be thrown.</p>
+
+<p>Two men, Resikoff and Elnikoff, the latter a young man completely under
+Sophia's influence, were to throw the bombs. She took a position from
+which she might signal the approach of the carriage. As it proved, the
+Catharine Canal route was taken. The carriage approached. Everything
+wore its usual aspect. There was nothing to excite suspicion. Suddenly a
+dark object was hurled from the sidewalk through the air and a
+tremendous report was heard. Resikoff had flung his bomb. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> baker's boy
+and the Cossack footman of the czar were instantly killed, but the
+intended victim was unhurt and the horses were only slightly wounded.
+The coachman, who had escaped injury, wished to drive onward at speed
+out of the quickly gathering crowd, but Alexander, who had seen his
+footman fall, insisted on getting out of the carriage to assist him. It
+was a fatal resolve. As his feet touched the ground, Elnikoff flung his
+bomb. It exploded at the feet of the czar with such force as to throw
+men many yards distant to the ground, but proved fatal to only two,
+Elnikoff, who was instantly killed, and Alexander, who was mortally
+wounded, his lower limbs and the lower part of his body being
+frightfully shattered. He survived for a few hours in dreadful pain.</p>
+
+<p>Terrible as was the crime, it was worse than useless. The proposed
+rising did not take place. A new czar immediately succeeded the dead
+one. The hoped-for constitution perished with him upon whom it depended.
+The Nihilists, instead of gaining liberal institutions, had set back the
+clock of reform for a generation, and perhaps much longer. Of the
+conspirators, one of the men was killed, one shot himself, and two
+escaped; the other four were executed. Of the women, Sophia was
+executed. She knew too much, and those who had betrayed to her the
+secrets of the court, fearing that she might implicate them, privately
+urged the new czar to sign her death-warrant. She held her peace, and
+died without a word.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Emperor of Russia, lord of his people, absolute autocrat over some
+one hundred and twenty-five millions of the human race, to-day stands
+master not only of half the soil of Europe but of more than a third of
+the far greater continent of Asia. To gain some definite idea of the
+total extent of this vast empire it may suffice to say that it is
+considerably more than double the size of Europe, and nearly as large as
+the whole of North America. The tales already given will serve to show
+how the European empire of Russia gradually spread outward from its
+early home in the city and state of Novgorod until it covered half the
+continent. How Russia made its way into Asia has been described in part
+in the story of the conquest of Siberia. The remainder needs to be told.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/image19.jpg" width="400" height="650" alt="DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA." title="" />
+<span class="caption">DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is now more than three hundred years since the Cossack robber Yermak
+invaded Siberia, and more than two centuries since that vast section of
+Northern Asia was added to the Russian empire. The great river Amur,
+flowing far through Eastern Siberia to the Pacific, was discovered in
+1643 by a party of Cossack hunters, who launched their boats on this
+magnificent stream and sailed down it to the sea. It was Chinese soil
+through which it ran, its waters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> flowing through the province of
+Manchuria, the native land of the emperors of China.</p>
+
+<p>But to this the Russian pioneers paid little heed. They invaded Chinese
+soil, built forts on the Amur, and for forty years war went on. In the
+end they were driven out, and China came to her own again.</p>
+
+<p>Thus matters stood until the year 1854. Six years before, an officer
+with four Cossacks had been sent down the river to spy out the land.
+They never returned, and not a word could be had from China as to their
+fate. In the year named the Russians explored the river in force. China
+protested, but did not act, and the whole vast territory north of the
+stream was proclaimed as Russian soil. Forts were built to make good the
+claim, and China helplessly yielded to the gigantic steal. Since then
+Russia has laid hands on an extensive slice of Chinese territory which
+lies on the Pacific coast far to the south of the Amur, and has forcibly
+taken possession of the Japanese island of Saghalien. Her avaricious
+eyes are fixed on the kingdom of Corea, and the whole of Manchuria may
+yet become Russian soil.</p>
+
+<p>Siberia is by no means the inhospitable land of ice which the name
+suggests to our minds. That designation applies well to its northern
+half, but not to the Siberia of the south. Here are vast fertile plains,
+prolific in grain, which need only the coming railroad facilities to
+make this region the granary of the Russian empire. The great rivers and
+the numerous lakes of the country abound in valuable fish; large forests
+of useful timber are everywhere found; fur-bearing animals yield a rich
+harvest in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> the icy regions of the north; the mineral wealth is immense,
+including iron, gold, silver, platinum, copper, and lead; precious
+stones are widely found, among them the diamond, emerald, topaz, and
+amethyst; and of ornamental stones may be named malachite, jasper, and
+porphyry, from which magnificent vases, tables, and other articles of
+ornament are made. The region on the Amur and its tributaries is
+particularly valuable and rich, and a great population is destined in
+the future to find an abiding-place in this vast domain.</p>
+
+<p>South of Siberia lies another immense extent of territory, stretching
+across the continent, and comprising the great upland plain known as the
+steppes. On this broad expanse rain rarely falls, and its surface is
+half a desert, unfit for agriculture, but yielding pasturage to vast
+herds of cattle, horses, and sheep, the property of wandering tribes.
+Here is the great home of the nomad, and from these broad plains
+conquering hordes have poured again and again over the civilized world.
+From here came the Huns, who devastated Europe in Roman days; the Turks,
+who later overthrew the Eastern Empire; and the Mongols, who, led by
+Genghis and Tamerlane, committed frightful ravages in Asia and for
+centuries lorded it over Russia.</p>
+
+<p>To-day the greater part of this vast territory belongs to China. But
+westward from Chinese Mongolia extends a broad region of the steppes,
+bordering upon Europe on the west, and traversed by numerous wandering
+tribes known by the name of the Kirghis hordes. For many years Russia,
+the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> annexer, has been quietly extending her power over the domain
+of the hordes, until her rule has become supreme in the land of the
+Kirghis, which in all maps of Europe is now given as part of Siberia.</p>
+
+<p>One by one military posts have been established in this semi-desert
+realm, the wandering tribes being at first cajoled and in the end
+defied. The glove of silk has been at first extended to the tribes, but
+within it the hand of iron has always held fast its grasp. The
+simple-minded chiefs have easily been brought over to the Russian
+schemes. Some of them have been won by money and soft words; others by
+some mark of distinction, such as a medal, a handsome sabre, a cocked
+hat or a gold-laced coat. Rather than give these up some of them would
+have sold half the steppes. They have signed papers of which they did
+not understand a word, and given away rights of whose value they were
+utterly ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>Thus insidiously has the power of the emperor made its way into the
+steppes, fort after fort being built, those in the rear being abandoned
+as the country became subdued and new forts arose in the south. Cities
+have risen around some of these forts, of which may be mentioned Kopal
+and Vernoje, which to-day have thousands of inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>"Russia is thus surrounding the Kirgheez hordes with civilization," says
+the traveller Atkinson, "which will ultimately bring about a moral
+revolution in this country. Agriculture and other branches of industry
+will be introduced by the Russian peasant, than whom no man can better
+adapt himself to circumstances."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p><p>Michie, another traveller, gives in brief the general method of the
+Russian advance. It will be seen to be similar to that by which the
+Indian lands of the western United States were gained. "The Cossacks at
+Russian stations make raids on their own account on the Kirgheez, and
+subject them to rough treatment. An outbreak occurs which it requires a
+military force to subdue. An expedition for this purpose is sent every
+year to the Kirgheez steppes. The Russian outposts are pushed farther
+and farther south, more disturbances occur, and so the front is year by
+year extended, on pretence of keeping peace. This has been the system
+pursued by the Russian government in all its aggressions in Asia."</p>
+
+<p>But this does not tell the whole story of the Russian advance in Asia.
+South of the Kirghis steppes lies another great and important territory,
+known as Central Asia, or Turkestan. Much of this region is absolute
+desert, wide expanses of sand, waterless and lifeless, on which to halt
+is to court death. Only swift-moving troops of horsemen, or caravans
+carrying their own supplies, dare venture upon these arid plains. But
+within this realm of sand lie a number of oases whose soil is well
+watered and of the highest fertility. Two mighty rivers traverse these
+lands, the Amu-Daria&mdash;once known as the Oxus&mdash;and the
+Syr-Daria&mdash;formerly the Jaxartes,&mdash;both of which flow into the Sea of
+Aral. It is to the waters of these streams that the fertility of <i>the</i>
+oases is due, they being diverted from their course to irrigate the
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Three of the oases are of large size. Of these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> Khiva has the Caspian
+Sea as its western boundary, Bokhara lies more to the east, while
+northeast of the latter extends Khokand. The deserts surrounding these
+oases have long been the lurking-places of the Turkoman nomads, a race
+of wild and warlike horsemen, to whom plunder is as the breath of life,
+and who for centuries kept Persia in alarm, carrying off hosts of
+captives to be sold as slaves.</p>
+
+<p>The religion of Arabia long since made its way into this land, whose
+people are fanatical Mohammedans. Its leading cities, Khiva, Bokhara,
+and Samarcand, have for many centuries been centres of bigotry. For ages
+Turkestan remained a land of mystery. No European was sure for a moment
+of life if he ventured to cross its borders. Vamb&eacute;ry, the traveller,
+penetrated it disguised as a dervish, after years of study of the
+language and habits of the Mohammedans, yet he barely escaped with life.
+It is pleasant to be able to say that this state of affairs has ceased.
+Russia has curbed the violence of the fanatics and the nomads, and the
+once silent and mysterious land is now traversed by the iron horse.</p>
+
+<p>The first step of Russian invasion in this quarter was made in 1602. In
+that year a Russian force captured the city of Khiva, but was not able
+to hold its prize. In 1703, during the reign of Peter the Great, the
+Khan of Khiva placed his dominions under Russian rule, and during the
+century Khiva continued friendly, but after the opening of the
+nineteenth century it became bitterly hostile.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Russia was making its way towards the Caspian and Aral seas.
+In 1835 a fort was built on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> the eastern shore of the Caspian and
+several armed steamers were placed on its waters. Four years later war
+broke out with Khiva, and the khan was forced to give up some Russian
+prisoners he had seized. In 1847 a fort was built on the Sea of Aral, at
+the mouth of the Syr-Daria, whose waters formed the only safe avenue to
+the desert-girdled khanate of Khokand. Steamers were brought in sections
+from Sweden, being carried with great labor across the desert to the
+inland sea, on whose banks they were put together and launched. Armed
+with cannon, they quickly made their appearance on the navigable waters
+of the Syr.</p>
+
+<p>The Amu-Daria is not navigable, so that the Syr at that time formed the
+only ready channel of approach to Khokand, and from this to the other
+khanates, none of which could be otherwise reached without a long and
+dangerous desert march. Russia thus, by planting herself at the mouth of
+the Syr, had gained the most available position from which to begin a
+career of conquest in Central Asia.</p>
+
+<p>War necessarily followed these steps of invasion. In 1853 the Russians
+besieged and captured the fort of Ak Mechet, on the Syr, thought by its
+holders to be impregnable. Up the river, bordered on each side by a
+narrow band of vegetation from which a desert spread away, the Russians
+gradually advanced, finally planting a military post within thirty-two
+miles of Tashkend, the military key of Central Asia.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the state of affairs in 1862, when war arose between the
+khanates themselves, and the Emir of Bokhara invaded and conquered
+Khokand. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>Russia looked on, awaiting its opportunity. It came at length
+in an appeal from the merchants of Tashkend for protection. The
+protection came in true Russian style, a Cossack force marching into and
+occupying the town, which has since then remained in Russian hands. The
+movement of invasion went on until a large portion of Khokand was
+seized.</p>
+
+<p>This audacious procedure of the Muscovites, as the Emir of Bokhara
+regarded it, roused that ruler to a high pitch of fury and fanaticism.
+He imprisoned Colonel Struve, an eminent Russian astronomer who was on a
+mission to his capital, and declared a holy war against the invading
+infidels.</p>
+
+<p>The emir had little fear of his foes, having what he considered two
+impassable lines of defence. Of these the first was the desert, which
+enclosed his land as within a wall of sand. The second, and in his view
+the more impregnable, was the large number of saints that lay buried in
+Bokharan soil, before whose graves the infidel host would surely be
+stayed.</p>
+
+<p>He probably soon lost faith in the saints, for the Russians quickly
+drove his troops out of Khokand and then invaded Bokhara itself,
+defeating his troops near the venerable and famous city of Samarcand, of
+which they immediately afterwards took possession. These infidel
+assaults soon brought the holy war to an end, the emir being forced to
+cede Samarcand and three other places to Russia, the four being so
+chosen as to give the invaders full military control of the country.</p>
+
+<p>This disaster, which fell upon Bokhara in 1868, was repeated in Khiva in
+1873. Bokharan troops aided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> the Russians, and Bokhara was rewarded with
+a generous slice of the conquered territory. Khiva was overthrown as
+quickly as the other oases had been, and the whole of Central Asia
+became Russian soil. It is true that a shadow of the old government is
+maintained, the khans of Bokhara and Khiva still occupying their
+thrones. But they are mere puppets to move as the Czar of Russia pulls
+the strings. As for Khokand, it has disappeared from the map of Asia,
+being replaced by the Russian province of Ferghana.</p>
+
+<p>We have thus in few words told a long and vital story, that of the steps
+by which Russia gained its strong foothold in Asia, and extended its
+boundaries from the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean
+and the boundaries of China, Persia, and India, all of which may yet
+become part of the vast Russian empire, if what some consider the secret
+purpose of Russia be carried out.</p>
+
+<p>Asia has been won by the sword; it is being held by other influences.
+Schools have been founded among the Kirghis, and a newspaper is printed
+in their language. Their plundering habits have been suppressed,
+agriculture is encouraged, and luxuries are being introduced into the
+steppes, with the result of changing the ideas and habits of the nomads.
+Thriving Cossack colonies have grown up on the plains, and the wandering
+barbarians behold with wonder the ways and means of civilization in
+their midst.</p>
+
+<p>The same may be said of Turkestan, in which violence has been suppressed
+and industry encouraged,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> while the Russian population, alike of the
+steppes and of the oases, is rapidly increasing. A railroad penetrates
+the formerly mysterious land, trains roll daily over its soil, carrying
+great numbers of Asiatic passengers, and an undreamed-of activity of
+commerce has taken the place of the old-time plundering raids of the
+half-savage Turkoman horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>The Russian is thoroughly adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an
+Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle
+the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian
+diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners.
+He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and prevaricate to
+their hearts' content. He is an adept in the art of bribery, has
+emissaries everywhere, and is much too deeply imbued with this Asiatic
+spirit for the bluntness of European methods. "You must beat about the
+bush with a Russian," we are told. "You must flatter them and humbug
+them. You must talk about everything but <i>the</i> thing. If you want to buy
+a horse you must pretend you want to sell a cow, and so work gradually
+round to the point in view."</p>
+
+<p>Thus the shrewd Russian has gained point after point from his Oriental
+neighbors, and has succeeded in annexing a vast territory while keeping
+on the friendliest of terms with his new subjects. He has respected
+their prejudices, left their religions untouched, dealt with them in
+their own ways, and is rapidly planting the Muscovite type of
+civilization<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> where Asiatic barbarism had for untold ages prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>No man can predict the final result of these movements. Asia has been in
+all ages the field of great invasions and of the sudden building up of
+immense empires. But the movements of the Muscovite conquerors have none
+of the torrent rush of those great invasions of the past. The Russian
+advances with extreme caution, takes no risks, and makes sure of his
+game before he shows his hand. He prepares the ground in front before
+taking a step forward, and all that he leaves in his rear falls into the
+strong folds of the imperial net. Gold and diplomacy are his weapons
+equally with the sword, and in the progress of his arms we seem to see
+Europe marching into Asia with a solid and unyielding front.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE RAILROAD IN TURKESTAN.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the 24th of January, 1881, Edward O'Donovan, a daring traveller who
+had journeyed far through the wastes and wilds of Turkestan, found
+himself on a mountain summit not far removed from the northern boundary
+of Persia, from which his startled eyes beheld a spectacle of fearful
+import. Below him the desert stretched in a broad level far away to the
+distant horizon. Near the foot of the range rose a great fortress,
+within which at that moment a frightful struggle was taking place.
+Bringing his field-glass to bear upon the scene, the traveller saw a
+host of terror-stricken fugitives streaming across the plain, and hot
+upon their steps a throng of merciless pursuers, who slaughtered them in
+multitudes as they fled. Even from where he stood the white face of the
+desert seemed changing to a crimson hue.</p>
+
+<p>What the astounded traveller beheld was the death-struggle of the desert
+Turkomans, the hand of retribution smiting those savage brigands who for
+centuries had carried death and misery wherever they rode. These were
+the Tekke Turkomans, the tribes who haunted the Persian frontier, and
+whose annual raids swept hundreds of captives from that peaceful land to
+spend the remainder of their days in the most woful form of slavery. For
+a month<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> previous General Skobeleff, the most daring and merciless of
+the Russian leaders, had besieged them in their great fort of Geop Tepe,
+an earthwork nearly three miles in circuit, and containing within its
+ample walls a desert nation, more than forty thousand in all, men,
+women, and children.</p>
+
+<p>On that day, fatal to the Turkoman power, Skobeleff had taken the fort
+by storm, dealing death wherever he moved, until not a man was left
+alive within its walls except some hundreds of fettered Persian slaves.
+Through its gateways a trembling multitude had fled, and upon these
+miserable fugitives the Russian had let loose his soldiers, horse, foot,
+and artillery, with the savage order to hunt them to the death and give
+no quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Only too well was the brutal order obeyed. Not men alone, but women and
+children as well, fell victims to the sword, and only when night put an
+end to the pursuit did that terrible massacre cease. By that time eight
+thousand persons, of both sexes and all ages, lay stretched in death
+upon the plain. Within the fort thousands more had fallen, the women and
+children here being spared. Skobeleff's report said that twenty thousand
+in all had been slain.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the frightful scene which lay before O'Donovan's eyes when he
+reached the mountain top, on his way to the Russian camp, a spectacle of
+horrible carnage which only a man of the most savage instincts could
+have ordered. "Bloody Eyes" the Turkomans named Skobeleff, and the title
+fairly indicated his ruthless lust for blood. It was his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> theory of war
+to strike hard when he struck at all, and to make each battle a lesson
+that would not soon be forgotten. The Turkoman nomads have been taught
+their lesson well. They have given no trouble since that day of
+slaughter and revenge.</p>
+
+<p>Such was one of the weapons with which the Russians conquered the
+desert,&mdash;the sword. It was succeeded by another,&mdash;the iron rail. It is
+now some twenty years since the idea of a railroad from the Caspian Sea
+eastward was first advanced. In 1880 a narrow-gauge road was begun to
+aid Skobeleff, but that daring and impetuous chief had made his march
+and finished his work before the rails had crept far on their way. Soon
+it was determined to change the narrow-gauge for a broad-gauge road, and
+General Annenkoff, a skilful engineer, was placed in charge in 1885,
+with orders to push it forward with all speed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a new and bold project which the Russians had in view. Never
+before had a railroad been built across so bleak a plain, a treeless and
+waterless expanse, stretching for hundreds of miles in a dead level,
+over which the winds drove at will the shifting sands, constantly
+threatening to bury any work which man ventured to lay upon the desert's
+broad breast. West of Bokhara and south of Khiva stretched the great
+desert of Kara-Kum, touching the Caspian Sea on the west, the Amu-Daria
+River on the east, the home of the wandering Turkomans, the born foes of
+the settled races, but from whom all thought of disputing the Russian
+rule had for the time been driven by Skobeleff's death-dealing blade.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p><p>The total length of the road thus ordered to be built&mdash;extending from
+the shores of the Caspian Sea, the outpost of European Russia, to the
+far-away city of Samarcand, the ancient capital of Timur the Tartar, and
+the very stronghold of Asiatic barbarism&mdash;was little short of a thousand
+miles, of which several hundred were bleak and barren desert. Two
+immense steppes, waterless, and scorching hot in summer, lay on the
+route, while it traversed the oases of Kizil-Arvat, Merv, Charjui, and
+Bokhara. In the northern section of the last lay the famous city of
+Samarcand, the eastern terminus of the road. The western terminus was at
+Usun-ada, on the Caspian, and opposite the petroleum region of Baku,
+perhaps the richest oil-yielding district in the world.</p>
+
+<p>General Annenkoff had special difficulties to overcome in the building
+of this road, of a kind never met with by railroad engineers before.
+Chief among these were the lack of water and the instability of the
+roadway, the wind at times manifesting an awkward disposition to blow
+out the foundation from under the ties, at other times to bury the whole
+road under acres of flying sand.</p>
+
+<p>These difficulties were got rid of in various ways. Fresh water, made by
+boiling the salt water of the Caspian and condensing the steam, was
+carried in vats or tuns over the road to the working parties. At a later
+date water was conveyed in pipes from the mountains to fill cisterns at
+the stations, whence it was carried in canals or underground conduits
+along the line, every well and spring on the route being utilized.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p><p>To overcome the shifting of the sand, near the Caspian it was
+thoroughly soaked with salt water, and at other places was covered with
+a layer of clay. But there are long distances where no such means could
+be employed, at least two hundred miles of utter wilderness, where the
+surface resembles a billowy sea, the sand being raised in loose hillocks
+and swept from the troughs between, flying in such clouds before every
+wind that an incessant battle with nature is necessary to keep the road
+from burial. To prevent this, tamarisk, wild oats, and desert shrubs are
+planted along the line, and in particular that strange plant of the
+wilderness, the <i>saxaoul</i>, whose branches are scraggly and scant, but
+whose sturdy roots sink deep into the sand, seeking moisture in the
+depths. Fascines of the branches of this plant were laid along the track
+and covered with sand, and in places palisades were built, of which only
+the tops are now visible.</p>
+
+<p>Yet despite all these efforts the sands creep insidiously on, and in
+certain localities workmen have to be kept employed, shovelling it back
+as it comes, and fighting without cessation against the forces of the
+desert and the winds. In the building of the road, and in this battling
+with the sands, Turkomans have been largely employed, having given up
+brigandage for honest labor, in which they have proved the most
+efficient of the various workmen engaged upon the road.</p>
+
+<p>Aside from the peculiar difficulties above outlined, the Transcaspian
+Railway was remarkably favored by nature. For nearly the whole distance
+the country<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> is as flat as a billiard-table, and the road so straight
+that at times it runs for twenty or thirty miles without the shadow of a
+curve. In the entire distance there is not a tunnel, and only some small
+cuttings have been made through hills of sand. Of bridges, other than
+mere culverts, there are but three in the whole length of the road, the
+only large one being that over the Amu-Daria. This is a hastily built,
+rickety affair of timber, put up only as a make-shift, and at the mercy
+of the stream if a serious rise should take place.</p>
+
+<p>The whole road, indeed, was hastily made, with a single track, the rails
+simply spiked down, and the work done at the rate of from a mile to a
+mile and a half a day. Before the Bokharans fairly realized what was
+afoot, the iron horse was careering over their level plains, and the
+shrill scream of the locomotive whistle was startling the saints in
+their graves.</p>
+
+<p>Over such a road no great speed can be attained. Thirty miles an hour is
+the maximum, and from ten to twenty miles the average speed, while the
+stops at stations are exasperatingly long to travellers from the
+impatient West. To the Asiatics they are of no concern, time being with
+them not worth a moment's thought.</p>
+
+<p>In the operation of this road petroleum waste is used as fuel, the
+refining works at Baku yielding an inexhaustible supply. The carriages
+are of mixed classes, some being two stories in height, each story of
+different class. There are very few first-class carriages on the road.
+As for the stations, some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> them are miles from the road, that of
+Bokhara being ten miles away. This method was adopted to avoid exciting
+the prejudices of the Asiatics, who at first were not in favor of the
+road, regarding it as a device of Shaitan, the spirit of evil. Yet the
+"fire-cart," as they call it, is proving very convenient, and they have
+no objection to let this fiery Satan haul their grain and cotton to
+market and carry themselves across the waterless plains. The camel is
+being thrown out of business by this shrill-voiced prince of evil. The
+road is being extended over the oases, and will in the end bring all
+Turkestan under its control.</p>
+
+<p>It almost takes away one's breath to think of railway stations and
+time-tables in connection with the old-time abiding-place of the
+terrible Tartar, and of the iron horse careering across the empire of
+barbarism, rushing into the metropolis of superstition, and waking with
+the scream of the steam whistle the silent centuries of the Orient.
+Nothing of greater promise than this planting of the railroad in Central
+Asia has been performed of recent years. The son of the desert is to be
+civilized despite himself, and to be taught the arts and ideas of the
+West by the irresistible logic of steel and steam.</p>
+
+<p>But this enterprise is a minor one compared with that which Russia has
+recently completed, that of a railway extending across the whole width
+of Siberia, being, with its branches, more than five thousand miles
+long&mdash;much the longest railway in the world. Work on this was begun in
+1890, and it is now completed to Vladivostok, the chief<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> Russian port on
+the Pacific, a traveller being able to ride from St. Petersburg to the
+shores of the Pacific Ocean without change of cars. A branch of this
+road runs southward through Manchuria to Port Arthur, but as a result of
+the war with Japan this has been transferred to China, Manchuria being
+wrested from the controlling grasp of Russia. It is a single-track road,
+but it is proposed to double-track it throughout its entire length, thus
+greatly increasing its availability as a channel of transport alike in
+war and peace.</p>
+
+<p>All this is of the deepest significance. The railroad in Asia has come
+to stay; and with its coming the barbarism of the past is nearing its
+end. The sleeping giant of Orientalism is stirring uneasily in its bed,
+its drowsy senses stirred by the shrill alarum of the locomotive
+whistle. New ideas and new habits must follow in the track of the iron
+horse. The West is forcing itself into the East, with all its restless
+activity. In the time to come this whole broad continent is destined to
+be covered with railroads as with a vast spider-web; new industries will
+be established, machinery introduced, and the great region of the
+steppes, famous in the past only as the starting-point of conquering
+migrations, must in the end become an active centre of industry, the
+home of peace and prosperity, a new-found abiding-place of civilization
+and human progress.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>AN ESCAPE FROM THE MINES OF SIBERIA.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> name Siberia calls up to our minds the vision of a stupendous
+prison, a vast open penitentiary larger than the whole United States, a
+continental place of captivity which for three centuries past has been
+the seat of more wretchedness and misery than any other land inhabited
+by the human race. To that far, frozen land a stream of the best and
+worst of the people of Russia has steadily flowed, including prisoners
+of state, religious dissenters, rebels, Polish patriots, convicts,
+vagabonds, and all others who in any way gave offence to the authorities
+or stood in the way of persons in power.</p>
+
+<p>Not freedom of action alone, but even freedom of thought, is a crime in
+Russia. It is a land of innumerable spies, of secret arrest and rapid
+condemnation, in which the captive may find himself on the road to
+Siberia without knowing with what crime he is charged, while his
+friends, even his wife and family, may remain in ignorance of his fate.
+Every year a convoy of some twenty thousand wretched prisoners is sent
+off to that dismal land, including the ignorant and the educated, the
+debased and the refined, men and women, young and old, the horror of
+exile being added to indescribably by this mingling of delicate and
+refined men and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> women with the rudest and most brutal of the convict
+class, all under the charge of mounted Cossacks, well armed, and bearing
+long whips as their most effective arguments of control.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said here that the misery of this long journey on foot has
+been somewhat mitigated since the introduction of railroads and
+steamboats, and will very likely be done away with when the
+Trans-siberian Railway is finished; but for centuries the horrors of the
+convict train have piteously appealed to the charity of the world, while
+the sufferings and brutalities which the exiles have had to endure stand
+almost without parallel in the story of convict life.</p>
+
+<p>The exiles are divided into two classes, those who lose all and those
+who lose part of their rights. Of a convict of the former class neither
+the word nor the bond has any value: his wife is released from all duty
+to him, he cannot possess any property or hold any office. In prison he
+wears convict clothes, has his head half shaved, and may be cruelly
+flogged at the will of the officials, or murdered almost with impunity.
+Those deprived of partial rights are usually sent to Western Siberia;
+those deprived of total rights are sent to Eastern Siberia, where their
+life, as workers in the mines, is so miserable and monotonous that death
+is far more of a relief than something to be feared.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<img src="images/image20.jpg" width="600" height="370" alt="GROUP OF SIBERIANS." title="" />
+<span class="caption">GROUP OF SIBERIANS.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Many of the exiles escape,&mdash;some from the districts where they live
+free, with privilege of getting a living in any manner available, others
+from the prisons or mines. The mere feat of running away is in many
+cases not difficult, but to get out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> country is a very different
+matter. The officers do not make any serious efforts to prevent escapes,
+and can be easily bribed to allow them, since they are enabled then to
+turn in the name of the prisoner as still on hand and charge the
+government for his support. In the gold-mines the convicts work in
+gangs, and here one will lie in a ditch and be covered with rubbish by
+his comrades. When his absence is discovered he is not to be found, and
+at nightfall he slips from the trench and makes for the forest.</p>
+
+<p>To spend the summer in the woods is the joy of many convicts. They have
+no hope of getting out of the country, which is of such vast extent that
+winter is sure to descend upon them before they can approach the border,
+but the freedom of life in the woods has for them an undefinable charm.
+Then as the frigid season approaches they permit themselves to be
+caught, and go back to their labor or confinement with hearts lightened
+by the enjoyment of their vagrant summer wanderings. There is in some
+cases another advantage to be gained. A twenty years' convict who has
+escaped and lets himself be caught again may give a false name, and
+avoid all incriminating answers through a convenient failure of memory.
+If not detected, he may in this way get off with a five years' sentence
+as a vagrant. But if detected his last lot is worse than his first,
+since the time he has already served goes for nothing.</p>
+
+<p>There is another peril to which escaping prisoners are exposed. The
+native tribes are apt to look upon them as game and shoot them down at
+sight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> It is said that they receive three roubles for each convict they
+bring to the police, dead or alive. "If you shoot a squirrel," they say,
+"you get only his skin; but if you shoot a <i>varnak</i> [convict] you get
+his skin and his clothing too."</p>
+
+<p>Atkinson, the Siberian traveller, tells a remarkable story of an escape
+of prisoners, which may be given in illustration of the above remarks.
+One night in September, 1850, the people of Barnaoul, a town in Western
+Siberia, were roused from their slumbers by the clatter of a party of
+mounted Cossacks galloping up the quiet street. The story they brought
+was an alarming one. Siberia had been invaded by three thousand Tartars
+of the desert, who were marching towards the town. Nearly all the gold
+from the Siberian gold-mines lay in Barnaoul, waiting to be smelted into
+bars and sent to St. Petersburg. There was much silver also, with
+abundance of other valuable government stores. All this would form a
+rich booty for an army of nomad plunderers, could they obtain it, and
+the news filled the town with excitement and alarm.</p>
+
+<p>As the night passed and the day came on, other Cossacks arrived with
+still more alarming news. The three thousand had grown to seven
+thousand, many of them armed with rifles, who were burning the Kalmuck
+villages as they advanced, and murdering every man, woman, and child who
+fell into their hands. Some thought that the wild hordes of Asia were
+breaking loose again, as in the time of Genghis Khan, and the terror of
+many of the people grew intense.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p><p>By noon the enemy had increased to ten thousand, and the people
+everywhere were flying before their advance. Hasty steps were taken for
+defence and for the safety of the gold and silver, while orders were
+despatched in all directions to gather a force to meet them on their
+way. But as the days passed on the alarm began to subside. The number of
+the invaders declined almost as rapidly as it had grown. They were not
+advancing upon the town. No army was needed to oppose them, and Cossacks
+were sent to stop the march of the troops. In the course of two days
+more the truth was sifted from the mass of wild rumors and reports. The
+ten thousand invaders dwindled to forty Circassian prisoners who had
+escaped from the gold-mines on the Birioussa.</p>
+
+<p>These fugitives had not a thought of invading the Russian dominions.
+They were prisoners of war who, with heartless cruelty, had been
+condemned to the mines of Siberia for the crime of a patriotic effort to
+save their country, and their sole purpose was to return to their
+far-distant homes.</p>
+
+<p>By the aid of small quantities of gold, which they had managed to hide
+from their guards, they succeeded in purchasing a sufficient supply of
+rifles and ammunition from the neighboring tribesmen, which they hid in
+a mountain cavern about seven miles away. There was no fear of the
+Tartars betraying them, as they had received for the arms ten times
+their value, and would have been severely punished if found with gold in
+their possession.</p>
+
+<p>On a Saturday afternoon near the end of July, 1850, after completing the
+day's labors, the Circassians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> left the mine in small parties, going in
+different directions. This excited no suspicion, as they were free to
+hunt or otherwise amuse themselves after their work. They gradually came
+together in a mountain ravine about six miles south of the mines. Not
+far from this locality a stud of spare horses were kept at pasture, and
+hither some of the fugitives made their way, reaching the spot just as
+the animals were being driven into the enclosure for the night. The
+three horse-keepers suddenly found themselves covered with rifles and
+forced to yield themselves prisoners, while their captors began to
+select the best horses from the herd.</p>
+
+<p>The Circassians deemed it necessary to take the herdsmen with them to
+prevent them from giving the alarm. Two of these also were skilful
+hunters and well acquainted with the surrounding mountain regions, and
+were likely to prove useful as guides. In all fifty-five horses were
+chosen, out of the three or four hundred in the herd. The remainder were
+turned out of the enclosure and driven into the forest, as if they had
+broken loose and their keepers were absent in search of them. This done,
+the captors sought their friends in the glen, by whom they were received
+with cheers, and before midnight, the moon having risen, the fugitives
+began their long and dangerous journey.</p>
+
+<p>Sunrise found them on a high summit, which commanded a view of the
+gold-mine they had left, marked by the curling smoke which rose from
+fires kept constantly alive to drive away the mosquitoes, the pests of
+the region. Taking a last look at their place<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> of exile, they moved on
+into a grassy valley, where they breakfasted and fed their horses. On
+they went, keeping a sharp watch upon their guides, day by day, until
+the evening of the fourth day found them past the crest of the range and
+descending into a narrow valley, where they decided to spend the night.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far all had gone well. They were now beyond the Russian frontier
+and in Chinese territory, and as their guides knew the country no
+farther, they were set free and their rifles restored to them. Venison
+had been obtained plentifully on the march, and fugitives and captives
+alike passed the evening in feasting and enjoyment. With daybreak the
+Siberians left to return to the mine and the Circassians resumed their
+route.</p>
+
+<p>From this time onward difficulties confronted them. They were in a
+region of mountains, precipices, ravines, and torrents. One dangerous
+river they swam, but, instead of keeping on due south, the difficulties
+of the way induced them to change their course to the west, alarmed,
+probably, by the vast snowy peaks of the Tangnou Mountains in the
+distance, though if they had passed these all danger from Siberia would
+have been at an end. As it was, after more than three weeks of
+wandering, the nature of the country forced them towards the northwest,
+until they came upon the eastern shore of the Altin-Kool Lake.</p>
+
+<p>Here was their final chance. Had they followed the lake southerly they
+might still have reached a place of safety. But ill fortune brought them
+upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> it at a point where it seemed easiest to round it on the north,
+and they passed on, hoping soon to reach its western shores. But the
+B&euml;a, the impassable torrent that flows from the lake, forced them again
+many miles northward in search of a ford, and into a locality from which
+their chance of escape was greatly reduced.</p>
+
+<p>More than two months had passed since they left the mines, and the poor
+wanderers were still in the vast Siberian prison, from which, if they
+had known the country, they might now have been far away. The region
+they had reached was thinly inhabited by Kalmuck Tartars, and they
+finally entered a village of this people, with whose inhabitants they
+unluckily got into a broil, ending in a battle, in which several
+Kalmucks were killed and the village burned.</p>
+
+<p>To this event was due the terrifying news that reached Barnaoul, the
+alarm being carried to a Cossack fort whose commandant was drunk at the
+time and sent out a series of exaggerated reports. As for the fugitives,
+they had in effect signed their death-warrant by their conflict with the
+Kalmucks. The news spread from tribe to tribe, and when the real number
+of the fugitives was learned the tribesmen entered savagely into
+pursuit, determined to obtain revenge for their slain kinsmen. The
+Circassians were wandering in an unknown country. The Kalmucks knew
+every inch of the ground. Scouts followed the fugitives, and after them
+came well-mounted hunters, who rapidly closed upon the trail, being on
+the evening of the third day but three miles away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p><p>The Circassians had crossed the B&euml;a and turned to the south, but here
+they found themselves in an almost impassable group of snow-clad
+mountains. On they pushed, deeper and deeper into the chain, still
+closely pursued, the Kalmucks so managing the pursuit as to drive them
+into a pathless region of the hills. This accomplished, they came on
+leisurely, knowing that they had their prey safe.</p>
+
+<p>At length the hungry and weary warriors were driven into a mountain
+pass, where the pursuers, who had hitherto saved their bullets, began a
+savage attack, rifle-balls dropping fast into the glen. The fugitives
+sought shelter behind some fallen rocks, and returned the fire with
+effect. But they were at a serious disadvantage, the hunters, who far
+outnumbered them, and knew every crag in the ravines, picking them off
+in safety from behind places of shelter. From point to point the
+Circassians fell back, defending their successive stations desperately,
+answering every call to surrender with shouts of defiance, and holding
+each spot until the fall of their comrades warned them that the place
+was no longer tenable.</p>
+
+<p>Night fell during the struggle, and under its cover the remaining
+fifteen of the brave fugitives made their way on foot deeper into the
+mountains, abandoning their horses to the merciless foe. At daybreak
+they resumed their march, scaling the rocky heights in front. Here,
+scanning the country in search of their pursuers, not one of whom was to
+be seen, they turned to the west, a range of snow-clad peaks closing the
+way in front. A forest of cedars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> before them seemed to present their
+only chance of escape, and they hurried towards it, but when within two
+hundred yards of the wood a puff of white smoke rose from a thicket, and
+one of the fugitives fell. The hunters had ambushed them on this spot,
+and as they rushed for the shelter of some rocks near by five more fell
+before the bullets of their foes.</p>
+
+<p>The fire was returned with some effect, and then a last desperate rush
+was made for the forest shelter. Only four of the poor fellows reached
+it, and of these some were wounded. The thick underwood now screened
+them from the volley that whistled after them, and they were soon safe
+from the effects of rifle-shots in the tangled forest depths.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the clouds had been gathering black and dense, and soon rain
+and sleet began to fall, accompanied by a fierce gale. Two small parties
+of Kalmucks were sent in pursuit, while the others began to prepare an
+encampment under the cedars. The storm rapidly grew into a hurricane,
+snow falling thick and whirling into eddies, while the pursuers were
+soon forced to return without having seen the small remnant of the
+gallant band. For three days the storm continued, and then was followed
+by a sharp frost. The winter had set in.</p>
+
+<p>No further pursuit was attempted. It was not needed. Nothing more was
+ever seen of the four Circassians, nor any trace of them found. They
+undoubtedly found their last resting-place under the snows of that
+mountain storm.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p>
+<h2><i>THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN.</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the memorable Saturday of May 27, 1905, in far eastern waters in
+which the guns of war-ships had rarely thundered before, took place an
+event that opened the eyes of the world as if a new planet had swept
+into its ken or a great comet had suddenly blazed out in the eastern
+skies. It was that of one of the most stupendous naval victories in
+history, won by a people who fifty years before had just begun to emerge
+from the dim twilight of medi&aelig;val barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>Japan, the Nemesis of the East, had won her maiden spurs on the field of
+warfare in her brief conflict with China in 1894, but that was looked
+upon as a fight between a young game-cock and a decrepit barn-yard fowl,
+and the Western world looked with a half-pitying indulgence upon the
+spectacle of the long-slumbering Orient serving its apprenticeship in
+modern war. Yet the rapid and complete triumph of the island empire over
+the leviathan of the Asiatic continent was much of a revelation of the
+latent power that dwelt in that newly-aroused archipelago, and when in
+1903 Japan began to speak in tones of menace to a second leviathan, that
+of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, the world's interest was deeply
+stirred again.</p>
+
+<p>Would little Japan dare attack a European<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> power and one so great and
+populous as Russia, with half Asia already in its clasp, with strong
+fortresses and fleets within striking distance, and with a continental
+railway over which it could pour thousands of armed battalions? The idea
+seemed preposterous, many looked upon the attitude of Japan as the
+madness of temerity, and when on February 6, 1904, the echo of the guns
+at Port Arthur was heard the world gave a gasp of astonishment and
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Were there any among us then who believed it possible for little Japan
+to triumph over the colossus it had so daringly attacked? If any, they
+were very few. It is doubtful if there was a man in Russia itself who
+dreamed of anything but eventual victory, with probably the adding of
+the islands of Japan to its chaplet of orient pearls. True, the success
+of the attack on their fleet was a painful surprise, and when they saw
+their great iron-clads locked up in Port Arthur harbor it was cause for
+annoyance. But if the fleet had been taken by surprise, the fortress was
+claimed to be impregnable, the army was powerful and accustomed to
+victory over its foes in Asia, and it was with an amused contempt of
+their half-barbarian foes and confidence in rapid and brilliant triumph
+that the Muscovite cohorts streamed across Asia with arms in hand and
+hope in heart.</p>
+
+<p>We do not propose to tell here what followed. The world knows it. Men
+read with an interest they had rarely taken in foreign affairs of the
+rapid and stupendous successes of the little soldiers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> Nippon, the
+indomitable valor of the troops, the striking skill of their leaders,
+the breadth and completeness of their tactics, the training and
+discipline of the men, the rare hygienic condition of the camps, their
+impetuosity in attack, their persistence in pursuit; in short, the
+sudden advent of an army with all the requisites of a victorious career,
+as pitted against the ill-handled myriads of Russia, not wanting in
+brute courage, but sadly lacking in efficient leadership and strategical
+skill in their commanders.</p>
+
+<p>Back went the Russian hosts, mile by mile, league by league, steadily
+pressed northward by the unrelenting persistence of the island warriors;
+while on the Liao-tung peninsula the besieging forces crept on foot by
+foot, caring apparently nothing for wounds or death, caring only for the
+possession of the fortress which they had been sent to win.</p>
+
+<p>We should like to record some victories for the Russians, but the annals
+of the war tell us of none. Outgeneralled and driven back from their
+strong position on the Yalu River; decisively beaten in the great battle
+of Liao-yang; checked in their offensive movement on the Shakhe River,
+with immense loss; and finally utterly defeated in the desperate two
+weeks' struggle around Mukden; the field warfare ended in the two great
+armies facing each other at Harbin, with months of man&#339;uvring before
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the campaign in the peninsula had gone on with like desperate
+efforts and final success of the Japanese, Port Arthur surrendering to
+its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> irresistible besiegers on the opening day of 1905. With it fell the
+Russian fleet which had been cooped up in its harbor for nearly a year;
+defeated and driven back in its every attempt to escape; its flag-ship,
+the "Petropavlovsk," sunk by a mine on April 13, 1904, carrying down
+Admiral Makaroff and nearly all its crew; the remnant of the fleet being
+finally sunk or otherwise disabled to save them from capture on the
+surrender of Port Arthur to the besieging forces.</p>
+
+<p>Such, in very brief epitome, were the leading features of the conflict
+on land and its earlier events on the sea. We must now return to the
+great naval battle spoken of above, which calls for detailed description
+alike from its being the closing struggle of the contest and from its
+extraordinary character as a phenomenal event in maritime war.</p>
+
+<p>The loss of the naval strength of Russia in eastern waters led to a
+desperate effort to retrieve the disaster, by sending from the Baltic
+every war-ship that could be got ready, with the hope that a strong
+fleet on the open waters of the east would enable Russia to regain its
+prestige as a naval power and deal a deadly blow at its foe, by closing
+the waters upon the possession of which the islanders depended for the
+support of their armies in Manchuria.</p>
+
+<p>This supplementary fleet, under Admiral Rojestvensky, set sail from the
+port of Libau on October 16, 1904, beginning its career inauspiciously
+by firing impulsively on some English fishing-boats on the 21st, with
+the impression that these were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> Japanese scouts. This hasty act
+threatened to embroil Russia with another foe, the ally of Japan, but it
+passed off with no serious results.</p>
+
+<p>Entering the Mediterranean and passing through the Suez Canal, the fine
+fleet under Rojestvensky, nearly sixty vessels strong, loitered on its
+way with wearisome deliberation, dallying for a protracted interval in
+the waters of the Indian Ocean and not passing Singapore on its journey
+north till April 12. It looked almost as if its commander feared the
+task before him, six months having now passed since it left the Baltic
+on its very deliberate cruise.</p>
+
+<p>The second Russian squadron, under Admiral Nebogatoff, did not pass
+Singapore until May 5, it being the 13th before the two squadrons met
+and combined. On the 22d they were seen in the waters of the Philippines
+heading northward. The news of this, flashed by cable from the far east
+to the far west, put Europe and America on the <i>qui vive</i>, in eager
+anticipation of startling events quickly to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile where was Admiral Togo and his fleet? For months he had been
+engaged in the work of bottling up the Russian squadron at Port Arthur.
+Since the fall of the latter place and the destruction of the war-ships
+in its harbor he had been lying in wait for the slow-coming Baltic
+fleet, doubtless making every preparation for the desperate struggle
+before him, but doing this in so silent and secret a method that the
+world outside knew next to nothing of what was going on.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> The astute
+authorities of Japan had no fancy for heralding their work to the world,
+and not a hint of the movements or whereabouts of the fleet reached
+men's ears.</p>
+
+<p>As the days passed on and the Russian ships steamed still northward, the
+anxious curiosity as to the location of the Japanese fleet grew
+painfully intense. The expected intention to waylay Rojestvensky in the
+southern straits had not been realized, and as the Russians left the
+Philippines in their rear, the question, Where is Togo? grew more
+insistent still. With extraordinary skill he had lain long in ambush,
+not a whisper as to the location of his fleet being permitted to make
+its way to the western world; and when Rojestvensky ventured into the
+yawning jaws of the Korean Strait he was in utter ignorance of the
+lurking-place of his grimly waiting foes.</p>
+
+<p>Before Rojestvensky lay two routes to choose between, the more direct
+one to Vladivostok through the narrow Korean Strait, or the longer one
+eastward of the great island of Honshu. Which he would take was in doubt
+and in which Togo awaited him no one knew. The skilled admiral of Japan
+kept his counsel well, doubtless satisfied in his own mind that the
+Russians would follow the more direct route, and quietly but watchfully
+awaiting their approach.</p>
+
+<p>It was on May 22, as we have said, that the Russian fleet appeared off
+the Philippines, the greatest naval force that the mighty Muscovite
+empire had ever sent to sea, the utmost it could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> muster after its
+terrible losses at Port Arthur. Five days afterwards, on the morning of
+Saturday, May 27, this proud array of men-of-war steamed into the open
+throat of the Straits of Korea, steering for victory and Vladivostok. On
+the morning of Monday, the 29th, a few battered fragments of this grand
+fleet were fleeing for life from their swift pursuers. The remainder
+lay, with their drowned crews, on the sea-bottom, or were being taken
+into the ports of victorious Japan. In those two days had been fought to
+a finish the greatest naval battle of recent times, and Japan had won
+the position of one of the leading naval powers of the world.</p>
+
+<p>On that Saturday morning no dream of such a destiny troubled the souls
+of those in the Russian fleet. They were passing into the throat of the
+channel between Japan and Korea, but as yet no sign of a foeman had
+appeared, and it may be that numbers on board the fleet were
+disappointed, for doubtless the hope of battle and victory filled many
+ardent souls on the Russian ships. The sun rose on the new day and sent
+its level beams across the seas, on which as yet no hostile ship had
+appeared. The billowing waters spread broad and open before them and it
+began to look as if those who hoped for a fight would be disappointed,
+those who desired a clear sea and an open passage would be gratified.</p>
+
+<p>No sails were visible on the waters except those of small craft, which
+scudded hastily for shore on seeing the great array of war-ships on the
+horizon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> Fishing-craft most of these, though doubtless among them were
+the scout-boats which the watchful Togo had on patrol with orders to
+signal the approach of the enemy's fleet. But as the day moved on the
+scene changed. A great ship loomed up, steering into the channel, then
+another and another, the vanguard of a battle-fleet, steaming straight
+southward. All doubt vanished. Togo had sprung from his ambush and the
+battle was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was a rough sea, and the coming vessels dashed through heavy waves as
+they drove onward to the fray. From the flag-ship of the fleet of Japan
+streamed the admiral's signal, not unlike the famous signal of Nelson at
+Trafalgar, "The defense of our empire depends upon this action. You are
+expected to do your utmost."</p>
+
+<p>Northward drove the Russians, drawn up in double column. The day moved
+on until noon was passed and the hour of two was reached. A few minutes
+later the first shots came from the foremost Russian ships. They fell
+short and the Japanese waited until they came nearer before replying.
+Then the roar of artillery began and from both sides came a hail of shot
+and shell, thundering on opposing hulls or rending the water into foam.
+From two o'clock on Saturday afternoon until two o'clock on Sunday
+morning that iron storm kept on with little intermission, the huge
+twelve-inch guns sending their monstrous shells hurtling through the
+air, the smaller guns raining projectiles on battle-ships and cruisers,
+until it seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> as if nothing that floated could live through that
+terrible storm.</p>
+
+<p>Never in the history of naval warfare had so frightful a cannonade been
+seen. Its effect on the opposing fleets was very different. For months
+Togo had kept his gunners in training and their shell-fire was accurate
+and deadly, hundreds of their projectiles hitting the mark and working
+dire havoc to the Russian ships and crews; while to judge from the
+little damage done, the return fire would seem to have been wild and at
+random. Either the work of training his gunners had been neglected by
+the Russian admiral, or they were demoralized by the projectiles from
+the rapid-fire guns of the Japanese, which swept their decks and mowed
+down the gunners at their posts.</p>
+
+<p>This fierce and telling fire soon had its effect. Ninety minutes after
+it began, the Russian armored cruiser "Admiral Nakhimoff" went reeling
+to the bottom with the greater part of her crew of six hundred men. Next
+to succumb was the repair-ship "Kamchatka." Badly hurt early in the
+battle, her steering-gear was later disabled, then a shell put her
+engines out of service, and shortly after her bow rose in the air and
+her stern sank, and with a tremendous roar she followed the "Nakhimoff"
+to the depths.</p>
+
+<p>Around the "Borodino," one of the largest of the Russian battle-ships,
+clustered five of the Japanese, pouring in their fire so fiercely that
+flames soon rose from her deck and the wounded monster seemed in sore
+distress. This was Rojestvensky's flag-ship, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> the enemy made it one
+of their chief targets, sweeping its decks until the great ship became a
+veritable shambles. Admiral Rojestvensky, wounded and his ship slowly
+settling under him, was transferred in haste to a torpedo-boat
+destroyer, and as evening came on the huge ship, still fighting
+desperately, turned turtle and vanished beneath the waves. As for the
+admiral, the destroyer which bore him was taken and he fell a prisoner
+into Japanese hands.</p>
+
+<p>Previous to this three other battle-ships, the "Lessoi," the "Veliky,"
+and the "Oslabya," had met with a similar fate, and shortly after
+sundown the "Navarin" followed its sister ships to the yawning depths.
+The fiery assault had quickly thrown the whole Russian array into
+disorder, while the Japanese skilfully man&#339;uvred to press the
+Russians from side and rear, forcing them towards the coast, where they
+were attacked by the Japanese column there advancing. In this way the
+fleet was nearly surrounded, the torpedo-boat flotilla being thrown out
+to intercept those vessels that sought to break through the deadly net.</p>
+
+<p>With the coming on of darkness the firing from the great guns ceased,
+the Russian fleet being by this time hopelessly beaten. But the
+torpedo-boats now came actively into action, keeping up their fire
+through most of the night. When Sunday morning dawned the shattered
+remnants of the Russian fleet were in full flight for safety, hotly
+pursued by the Japanese, who were bent on preventing the escape of a
+single ship. The roar of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> guns began again about nine o'clock and was
+kept up at intervals during the day, new ships being bagged from time to
+time by Togo's victorious fleet, while others, shot through and through,
+followed their brothers of the day before to the ocean depths.</p>
+
+<p>The most notable event of this day's fight was the bringing to bay off
+Liancourt Island of a squadron of five battle-ships, comprising the
+division of Admiral Nebogatoff. Togo, in the battle-ship "Mikasa,"
+commanded the pursuing squadron, which overtook and surrounded the
+Russian ships, pouring in a terrible fire which soon threw them into
+hopeless confusion. Not a shot came back in reply and Togo, seeing their
+helpless plight, signalled a demand for their surrender. In response the
+Japanese flag was run up over the Russian standard, and these five ships
+fell into the hands of the islanders without an effort at defense. The
+confusion and dismay on board was such that an attempt to fight could
+have led only to their being sent to the bottom with their crews.</p>
+
+<p>It was a miserable remnant of the proud Russian fleet that escaped,
+including only the cruiser "Almez" and a few torpedo-boats that came
+limping into the harbor of Vladivostok with the news of the disaster,
+and the cruisers "Oleg," "Aurora," and "Jemchug," under Rear-admiral
+Enquist, that straggled in a damaged condition into Manila harbor a week
+after the great fight. Aside from these the Russian fleet was
+annihilated, its ships destroyed or captured; the total loss, according
+to Admiral Togo's report, being eight battle-ships,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> three armored
+cruisers, three coast-defense ships, and an unenumerated multitude of
+smaller vessels, while the loss in men was four thousand prisoners and
+probably twice that number slain or drowned.</p>
+
+<p>The most astonishing part of the report was that the total losses of the
+Japanese were three torpedo-boats, no other ships being seriously
+damaged, while the loss in killed and wounded was not over eight hundred
+men. It was a fight that paralleled, in all respects except that of
+dimensions of the battling fleets, the naval fights at Manila and
+Santiago in the Spanish-American war.</p>
+
+<p>What followed this stupendous victory needs not many words to tell. On
+land and sea the Russians had been fought to a finish. To protract the
+war would have been but to add to their disasters. Peace was imperative
+and it came in the following September, the chief result being that the
+Russian career of conquest in Eastern Asia was stayed and Japan became
+the master spirit in that region of the globe.<br /><br /></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Historical Tales: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20055/20055-h/20055-h.htm#h2-30">France.</a></p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15)
+       The Romance of Reality
+
+Author: Charles Morris
+
+Release Date: May 27, 2008 [EBook #25625]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORIC TALES, VOL. 8 (OF 15) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Greg Bergquist and The Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE KREMLIN.]
+
+
+
+
+  Edition d'Elite
+
+
+  Historical Tales
+
+  The Romance of Reality
+
+
+  By
+
+  CHARLES MORRIS
+
+  _Author of "Half-Hours with the Best American Authors," "Tales from the
+  Dramatists," etc._
+
+
+  IN FIFTEEN VOLUMES
+
+  Volume VIII
+
+
+  Russian
+
+
+  J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+  PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1898, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1904, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+  Copyright, 1908, by J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+_CONTENTS._
+
+                                                          PAGE
+
+  THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS                                      5
+
+  OLEG THE VARANGIAN                                        14
+
+  THE VENGEANCE OF QUEEN OLGA                               21
+
+  VLADIMIR THE GREAT                                        29
+
+  THE LAWGIVER OF RUSSIA                                    41
+
+  THE YOKE OF THE TARTARS                                   49
+
+  THE VICTORY OF THE DON                                    55
+
+  IVAN, THE FIRST OF THE CZARS                              60
+
+  THE FALL OF NOVGOROD THE GREAT                            64
+
+  IVAN THE TERRIBLE                                         74
+
+  THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA                                   80
+
+  THE MACBETH OF RUSSIA                                     85
+
+  THE ERA OF THE IMPOSTORS                                 101
+
+  THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY                                    110
+
+  BOYHOOD OF PETER THE GREAT                               114
+
+  CARPENTER PETER OF ZAANDAM                               123
+
+  THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ                                 132
+
+  THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS                    142
+
+  MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF                               149
+
+  A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE                                  155
+
+  FROM THE HOVEL TO THE THRONE                             165
+
+  BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT                        174
+
+  HOW A WOMAN DETHRONED A MAN                              184
+
+  A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE                                  195
+
+  THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS                               202
+
+  A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE                           220
+
+  KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND                         226
+
+  SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE                               231
+
+  THE RETREAT OF NAPOLEON'S GRAND ARMY                     241
+
+  THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF POLAND                             248
+
+  SCHAMYL, THE HERO OF CIRCASSIA                           258
+
+  THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE                          267
+
+  THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL                                   276
+
+  AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE                           284
+
+  THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK                             293
+
+  THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA                            300
+
+  THE RAILROAD IN TURKESTAN                                311
+
+  AN ESCAPE FROM THE MINES OF SIBERIA                      319
+
+  THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN                     329
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+  RUSSIAN.
+
+                                                           PAGE
+
+  THE KREMLIN                                    _Frontispiece._
+
+  CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW                       40
+
+  GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW                                    55
+
+  CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT                        78
+
+  KIAKHTA, SIBERIA                                          84
+
+  CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH
+  THE CZAR IS CROWNED                                      109
+
+  ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA                           122
+
+  DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT,
+  MOSCOW                                                   136
+
+  PETER THE GREAT                                          142
+
+  ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER                        156
+
+  SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA                                      160
+
+  A RUSSIAN DROSKY                                         189
+
+  THE CITY OF KASAN                                        199
+
+  SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM                                  223
+
+  RUSSIAN PEASANTS                                         249
+
+  MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA                                  267
+
+  THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE                              290
+
+  THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST                                 297
+
+  DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA                                300
+
+  GROUP OF SIBERIANS                                       320
+
+
+
+
+_THE ANCIENT SCYTHIANS._
+
+
+Far over the eastern half of Europe extends a vast and mighty plain,
+spreading thousands of miles to the north and south, to the east and
+west, in the north a land of forests, in the south and east a region of
+treeless levels. Here stretches the Black Land, whose deep dark soil is
+fit for endless harvests; here are the arable steppes, a vast fertile
+prairie land, and here again the barren steppes, fit only for wandering
+herds and the tents of nomad shepherds. Across this great plain, in all
+directions, flow myriads of meandering streams, many of them swelling
+into noble rivers, whose waters find their outlet in great seas. Over it
+blow the biting winds of the Arctic zone, chaining its waters in fetters
+of ice for half the year. On it in summer shine warm suns, in whose
+enlivening rays life flows full again.
+
+Such is the land with which we have to deal, Russia, the seeding-place
+of nations, the home of restless tribes. Here the vast level of Northern
+Asia spreads like a sea over half of Europe, following the lowlands
+between the Urals and the Caspian Sea. Over these broad plains the
+fierce horsemen of the East long found an easy pathway to the rich and
+doomed cities of the West. Russia was playing its part in the grand
+drama of the nations in far-off days when such a land was hardly known
+to exist.
+
+Have any of my readers ever from a hill-top looked out over a broad,
+low-lying meadow-land filled with morning mist, a dense white shroud
+under which everything lay hidden, all life and movement lost to view?
+In such a scene, as the mist thins under the rays of the rising sun,
+vague forms at first dimly appear, magnified and monstrous in their
+outlines, the shadows of a buried wonderland. Then, as the mist slowly
+lifts, like a great white curtain, living and moving objects appear
+below, still of strange outlines and unnatural dimensions. Finally, as
+if by the sweep of an enchanter's wand, the mists vanish, the land lies
+clear under the solar rays, and we perceive that these seeming monsters
+and giants are but the familiar forms which we know so well, those of
+houses and trees, men and their herds, actively stirring beneath us,
+clearly revealed as the things of every day.
+
+It is thus that the land of Russia appears to us when the mists of
+prehistoric time first begin to lift. Half-formed figures appear,
+rising, vanishing, showing large through the vapor; stirring,
+interwoven, endlessly coming and going; a phantasmagoria which it is
+impossible more than half to understand. At that early date the great
+Russian plain seems to have been the home of unnumbered tribes of varied
+race and origin, made up of men doubtless full of hopes and aspirations
+like ourselves, yet whose story we fail to read on the blurred page of
+history, and concerning whom we must rest content with knowing a few of
+the names.
+
+Yet progressive civilizations had long existed in the countries to the
+south, Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Persia. History was actively being
+made there, but it had not penetrated the mist-laden North. The Greeks
+founded colonies on the northern shores of the Black Sea, but they
+troubled themselves little about the seething tribes with whom they came
+there into contact. The land they called Scythia, and its people
+Scythians, but the latter were scarcely known until about 500 B.C., when
+Darius, the great Persian king, crossed the Danube and invaded their
+country. He found life there in abundance, and more warlike activity
+than he relished, for the fierce nomads drove him and his army in terror
+from their soil, and only fortune and a bridge of boats saved them from
+perishing.
+
+It was this event that first gave the people of old Russia a place on
+the page of history. Herodotus, the charming old historian and
+story-teller, wrote down for us all he could learn about them, though
+what he says has probably as much fancy in it as fact.
+
+We are told that these broad levels were formerly inhabited by a people
+called the Cimmerians, who were driven out by the Scythians and went--it
+is hard to tell whither. A shadow of their name survives in the Crimea,
+and some believe that they were the ancestors of the Cymri, the Celts of
+the West.
+
+The Scythians, who thus came into history like a cloud of war, made the
+god of war their chief deity. The temples which they built to this deity
+were of the simplest, being great heaps of fagots, which were added to
+every year as they rotted away under the rains. Into the top of the
+heap was thrust an ancient iron sword as the emblem of the god. To this
+grim symbol more victims were sacrificed than to all the other deities;
+not only cattle and horses, but prisoners taken in battle, of whom one
+out of every hundred died to honor the god, their blood being caught in
+vessels and poured on the sword.
+
+A people with a worship like this must have been savage in grain. To
+prove their prowess in war they cut off the heads of the slain and
+carried them to the king. Like the Indians of the West, they scalped
+their enemies. These scalps, softened by treatment, they used as napkins
+at their meals, and even sewed them together to make cloaks. Here was a
+refinement in barbarity undreamed of by the Indians.
+
+These were not their only savage customs. They drank the blood of the
+first enemy killed by them in battle, and at their high feasts used
+drinking-cups made from the skulls of their foes. When a chief died
+cruelty was given free vent. The slaves and horses of the dead chief
+were slain at his grave, and placed upright like a circle of horsemen
+around the royal tomb, being impaled on sharp timbers to keep them in an
+upright position.
+
+Tribes with habits like these have no history. There is nothing in their
+careers worth the telling, and no one to tell it if there were. Their
+origin, manners, and customs may be of interest, but not their
+intertribal quarrels.
+
+Herodotus tells us of others besides the Scythians. There were the
+Melanchlainai, who dressed only in black; the Neuri, who once a year
+changed into wolves; the Agathyrei, who took pleasure in trinkets of
+gold; the Sauromati, children of the Amazons, or women warriors; the
+Argippei, bald-headed and snub-nosed from their birth; the Issedones,
+who feasted on the dead bodies of their parents; the Arimaspians, a
+one-eyed race; the Gryphons, guardians of great hoards of gold; the
+Hyperboreans, in whose land white feathers (snow-flakes?) fell all the
+year round from the skies.
+
+Such is the mixture of fact and fable which Herodotus learned from the
+traders and travellers of Greece. We know nothing of these tribes but
+the names. Their ancestors may have dwelt for thousands of years on the
+Russian plains; their descendants may still make up part of the great
+Russian people and retain some of their old-time habits and customs; but
+of their doings history takes no account.
+
+The Scythians, who occupied the south of Russia, came into contact with
+the Greek trading colonies north of the Black Sea, and gained from them
+some little veneer of civilization. They aided the Greeks in their
+commerce, took part in their caravans to the north and east, and spent
+some portion of the profits of their peaceful labor in objects of art
+made for them by Greek artists.
+
+This we know, for some of these objects still exist. Jewels owned by the
+ancient Scythians may be seen to-day in Russian museums. Chief in
+importance among these relics are two vases of wonderful interest kept
+in the museum of the Hermitage, at St. Petersburg. These are the silver
+vase of Nicopol and the golden vase of Kertch, both probably as old as
+the days of Herodotus. These vases speak with history. On the silver
+vase we may see the faces and forms of the ancient Scythians, men with
+long hair and beards and large features. They resemble in dress and
+aspect the people who now dwell in the same country, and they are shown
+in the act of breaking in and bridling their horses, just as their
+descendants do to-day. Progress has had no place on these broad plains.
+There life stands still.
+
+On the golden vase appear figures who wear pointed caps and dresses
+ornamented in the Asiatic fashion, while in their hands are bows of
+strange shape. But their features are those of men of Aryan descent, and
+in them we seem to see the far-off progenitors of the modern Russians.
+
+Herodotus, in his chatty fashion, tells us various problematical stories
+of the Scythians, premising that he does not believe them all himself. A
+tradition with them was that they were the youngest of all nations,
+being descended from Targitaus, one of the numerous sons of Jove. The
+three children of Targitaus for a time ruled the land, but their joint
+rule was changed by a prodigy. There fell from the skies four implements
+of gold,--a plough, a yoke, a battle-axe, and a drinking-cup. The oldest
+brother hastened eagerly to seize this treasure, but it burst into flame
+at his approach. The second then made the attempt, but was in his turn
+driven back by the scorching flames. But on the approach of the youngest
+the flames vanished, the gold grew cool, and he was enabled to take
+possession of the heaven-given implements. His elders then withdrew from
+the throne, warned by this sign from the gods, and left him sole ruler.
+The story proceeds that the royal gold was guarded with the greatest
+care, yearly sacrifices being made in its honor. If its guardian fell
+asleep in the open air during the sacrifices he was doomed to die within
+the year. But as reward for the faithful keeping of his trust he
+received as much land as he could ride round on horseback in a day.
+
+The old historian further tells us that the Scythian warriors invaded
+the kingdom of Media, which they conquered and held for twenty-eight
+years. During this long absence strange events were taking place at
+home. They had held many slaves, whom it was their custom to blind, as
+they used them only to stir the milk in the great pot in which koumiss,
+their favorite beverage, was made.
+
+The wives of the absent warriors, after years of waiting, gave up all
+hopes of their return and married the blind slaves; and while the
+masters tarried in Media the children of their slaves grew to manhood.
+
+The time at length came when the warriors, filled with home-sickness,
+left the subject realm to seek their native plains. As they marched
+onward they found themselves stopped by a great dike, dug from the
+Tauric Mountains to Lake Maeotis, behind which stood a host of youthful
+warriors. They were the children of the slaves, who were determined to
+keep the land for themselves. Many battles were fought, but the young
+men held their own bravely, and the warriors were in despair.
+
+Then one of them cried to his fellows,--
+
+"What foolish thing are we doing, Scythians? These men are our slaves,
+and every one of them that falls is a loss to us; while each of us that
+falls reduces our number. Take my advice, lay aside spear and bow, and
+let each man take his horsewhip and go boldly up to them. So long as
+they see us with arms in our hands they fancy that they are our equals
+and fight us bravely. But let them see us with only whips, and they will
+remember that they are slaves and flee like dogs from before our faces."
+
+It happened as he said. As the Scythians approached with their whips the
+youths were so astounded that they forgot to fight, and ran away in
+trembling terror. And so the warriors came home, and the slaves were put
+to making koumiss again.
+
+These fabulous stories of the early people of Russia may be followed by
+an account of their funeral customs, left for us by an Arabian writer
+who visited their land in the ninth century. He tells us that for ten
+days after the death of one of their great men his friends bewailed him,
+showing the depth of their grief by getting drunk on koumiss over his
+corpse.
+
+Then the men-servants were asked which of them would be buried with his
+master. The one that consented was instantly seized and strangled. The
+same question was put to the women, one of whom was sure to accept.
+There may have been some rare future reward offered for death in such a
+cause. The willing victim was bathed, adorned, and treated like a
+princess, and did nothing but drink and sing while the obsequies lasted.
+
+On the day fixed for the end of the ceremonies, the dead man was laid in
+a boat, with part of his arms and garments. His favorite horse was slain
+and laid in the boat, and with it the corpse of the man-servant. Then
+the young girl was led up. She took off her jewels, a glass of kvass was
+put in her hand, and she sang a farewell song.
+
+"All at once," says the writer, "the old woman who accompanied her, and
+whom they called the angel of death, bade her to drink quickly, and to
+enter into the cabin of the boat, where lay the dead body of her master.
+At these words she changed color, and as she made some difficulty about
+entering, the old woman seized her by the hair, dragged her in, and
+entered with her. The men immediately began to beat their shields with
+clubs to prevent the other girls from hearing the cries of their
+companion, which might prevent them one day dying for their master."
+
+The boat was then set on fire, and served as a funeral pile, in which
+living and dead alike were consumed.
+
+
+
+
+_OLEG THE VARANGIAN._
+
+
+For ages and ages, none can say how many, the great plain of Russia
+existed as a nursery of tribes, some wandering with their herds, some
+dwelling in villages and tilling their fields, but all warlike and all
+barbarians. And over this plain at intervals swept conquering hordes
+from Asia, the terrible Huns, the devastating Avars, and others of
+varied names. But as yet the Russia we know did not exist, and its very
+name had never been heard.
+
+As time went on, the people in the centre and north of the country
+became peaceful and prosperous, since the invaders did not cross their
+borders, and a great and wealthy city arose, whose commerce in time
+extended on the east as far as Persia and India, on the south to
+Constantinople, and on the west far through the Baltic Sea. Though
+seated in Russia, still largely a land of barbarous tribes, Novgorod
+became one of the powerful cities of the earth, making its strength felt
+far and wide, placing the tribes as far as the Ural Mountains under
+tribute, and growing so strong and warlike that it became a common
+saying among the people, "Who can oppose God and Novgorod the Great?"
+
+But trouble arose for Novgorod. Its chief trade lay through the Baltic
+Sea, and here its ships met those terrible Scandinavian pirates who were
+then the ocean's lords. Among these bold rovers were the Danes who
+descended on England, the Normans who won a new home in France, the
+daring voyagers who discovered Iceland and Greenland, and those who
+sailed up the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople, conquering
+kingdoms as they went.
+
+To some of these Scandinavians the merchants of Novgorod turned for aid
+against the others. Bands of them had made their way into Russia and
+settled on the eastern shores of the Baltic. To these the Novgorodians
+appealed in their trouble, and in the year 862 asked three Varangian
+brothers, Rurik, Sinaf, and Truvor, to come to their aid. The warlike
+brothers did so, seated themselves on the frontier of the republic of
+Novgorod, drove off its foes--and became its foes themselves. The people
+of Novgorod, finding their trade at the mercy of their allies, submitted
+to their power, and in 864 invited Rurik to become their king. His two
+brothers had meantime died.
+
+Thus it was that the Russian empire began, for the Varangians came from
+a country called Ross, from which their new realm gained the name of
+Russia.
+
+Rurik took the title of Grand Prince, made his principal followers lords
+of the cities of his new realm, and the republic of Novgorod came to an
+end in form, though not in spirit. It is interesting to note at this
+point that Russia, which began as a republic, has ended as one of the
+most absolute of monarchies. The first step in its subjection was taken
+when Novgorod invited Rurik the Varangian to be its prince; the other
+steps came later, one by one.
+
+For fifteen years Rurik remained lord of Novgorod, and then died and
+left his four-year-old son Igor as his heir, with Oleg, his kinsman, as
+regent of the realm. It is the story of Oleg, as told by Nestor, the
+gossipy old Russian chronicler, that we propose here to tell, but it
+seemed useful to precede it by an account of how the Russian empire came
+into existence.
+
+Oleg was a man of his period, a barbarian and a soldier born; brave,
+crafty, adventurous, faithful to Igor, his ward, cruel and treacherous
+to others. Under his rule the Russian dominions rapidly and widely
+increased.
+
+At an earlier date two Varangians, Askhold and Dir by name, had made
+their way far to the south, where they became masters of the city of
+Kief. They even dared to attack Constantinople, but were driven back
+from that great stronghold of the South.
+
+It by no means pleased Oleg to find this powerful kingdom founded in the
+land which he had set out to subdue. He determined that Kief should be
+his, and in 882 made his way to its vicinity. But it was easier to reach
+than to take. Its rulers were brave, their Varangian followers were
+courageous, the city was strong. Oleg, doubting his power to win it by
+force of arms, determined to try what could be done by stratagem and
+treachery.
+
+Leaving his army, and taking Igor with him, he floated down the Dnieper
+with a few boats, in which a number of armed men were hidden, and at
+length landed near the ancient city of Kief, which stood on high ground
+near the river. Placing his warriors in ambush, he sent a messenger to
+Askhold and Dir, with the statement that a party of Varangian merchants,
+whom the prince of Novgorod had sent to Greece, had just landed, and
+desired to see them as friends and men of their own race.
+
+Those were simple times, in which even the rulers of cities did not put
+on any show of state. On the contrary, the two princes at once left the
+city and went alone to meet the false merchants. They had no sooner
+arrived than Oleg threw off his mask. His followers sprang from their
+ambush, arms in hand.
+
+"You are neither princes nor of princely birth," he cried; "but I am a
+prince, and this is the son of Rurik."
+
+And at a sign from his hand Askhold and Dir were laid dead at his feet.
+
+By this act of base treachery Oleg became the master of Kief. No one in
+the city ventured to resist the strong army which he quickly brought up,
+and the metropolis of the south opened its gates to the man who had
+wrought murder under the guise of war. It is not likely, though, that
+Oleg sought to justify his act on any grounds. In those barbarous days,
+when might made right, murder was too much an every-day matter to be
+deeply considered by any one.
+
+Oleg was filled with admiration of the city he had won. "Let Kief be the
+mother of all the Russian cities!" he exclaimed. And such it became, for
+he made it his capital, and for three centuries it remained the capital
+city of the Russian realm.
+
+What he principally admired it for was its nearness to Constantinople,
+the capital of the great empire of the East, on which, like the former
+lords of Kief, he looked with greedy and envious eyes.
+
+For long centuries past Greece and the other countries of the South had
+paid little heed to the dwellers on the Russian plains, of whose
+scattered tribes they had no fear. But with the coming of the
+Varangians, the conquest of the tribes, and the founding of a
+wide-spread empire, a different state of affairs began, and from that
+day to this Constantinople has found the people of the steppes its most
+dangerous and persistent foes.
+
+Oleg was not long in making the Greek empire feel his heavy hand.
+Filling the minds of his followers and subjects with his own thirst for
+blood and plunder, he set out with an army of eighty thousand men, in
+two thousand barks, passed the cataracts of the Borysthenes, crossed the
+Black Sea, murdered the subjects of the empire in hosts, and, as the
+chronicles say, sailed overland with all sails set to the port of
+Constantinople itself. What he probably did was to have his vessels
+taken over a neck of land on wheels or rollers.
+
+Here he threw the imperial city into mortal terror, fixed his shield on
+the very gate of Constantinople, and forced the emperor to buy him off
+at the price of an enormous ransom. To the treaty made the Varangian
+warriors swore by their gods Perune and Voloss, by their rings, and by
+their swords,--gold and steel, the things they honored most and most
+desired.
+
+Then back in triumph they sailed to Kief, rich with booty, and ever
+after hailing their leader as the Wise Man, or Magician. Eight years
+afterwards Oleg made a treaty of alliance and commerce with
+Constantinople, in which Greeks and Russians stood on equal footing.
+Russia had made a remarkable stride forward as a nation since Rurik was
+invited to Novgorod a quarter-century before.
+
+For thirty-three years Oleg held the throne. His was too strong a hand
+to yield its power to his ward. Igor must wait for Oleg's death. He had
+found a province; he left an empire. In his hands Russia grew into
+greatness, and from Novgorod to Kief and far and wide to the right and
+left stretched the lands won by his conquering sword.
+
+He was too great a man to die an ordinary death. According to the
+tradition, miracle had to do with his passing away. Nestor, the prince
+of Russian chroniclers, tells us the following story:
+
+Oleg had a favorite horse, which he rode alike in battle and in the
+hunt, until at length a prediction came from the soothsayers that death
+would overtake him through his cherished charger. Warrior as he was, he
+had the superstition of the pagan, and to avoid the predicted fate he
+sent his horse far away, and for years avoided even speaking of it.
+
+Then, moved by curiosity, he asked what had become of the banished
+animal.
+
+"It died years ago," was the reply; "only its bones remain."
+
+"So much for your soothsayers," he cried, with a contempt that was not
+unmixed with relief. "That, then, is all this prediction is worth! But
+where are the bones of my good old horse? I should like to see what
+little is left of him."
+
+He was taken to the spot where lay the skeleton of his old favorite, and
+gazed with some show of feeling on the bleaching bones of what had once
+been his famous war-horse. Then, setting his foot on the skull, he
+said,--
+
+"So this is the creature that is destined to be my death."
+
+At that moment a deadly serpent that lay coiled up within the skull
+darted out and fixed its poisonous fangs in the conqueror's foot. And
+thus ignobly he who had slain men by thousands and conquered an empire
+came to his death.
+
+
+
+
+_THE VENGEANCE OF QUEEN OLGA._
+
+
+The death of Oleg brought Igor his ward, then nearly forty years of age,
+to the throne of Rurik his father. And the same old story of bloodshed
+and barbarity went on. In those days a king was king in name only. He
+was really but the chief of a band of plunderers, who dug wealth from
+the world with the sword instead of the spade, threw it away in wild
+orgies, and then hounded him into leading them to new wars.
+
+The story of the Northmen is everywhere the same. While in the West they
+were harrying England, France, and the Mediterranean countries with fire
+and sword, in the East their Varangian kinsmen were spreading
+devastation through Russia and the empire of the Greeks.
+
+Like his predecessor, Igor invaded this empire with a great army,
+landing in Asia Minor and treating the people with such brutal ferocity
+that no earthquake or volcano could have shown itself more merciless.
+His prisoners were slaughtered in the most barbarous manner, fire swept
+away all that havoc had left, and then the Russian prince sailed in
+triumph against Constantinople, with his ten thousand barks manned by
+murderers and laden with plunder.
+
+But the Greeks were now ready for their foes. Pouring on them the
+terrible Greek fire, they drove them back in dismay to Asia Minor, where
+they were met and routed by the land forces of the empire. In the end
+Igor hurried home with hardly a third of his great army.
+
+Three years afterward he again led an army in boats against
+Constantinople, but this time he was bought off by a tribute of gold,
+silver, and precious stuffs, as Oleg had been before him.
+
+Igor was now more than seventy years old, and naturally desired to spend
+the remainder of his days in peace, but his followers would not let him
+rest. The spoils and tribute of the Greeks had quickly disappeared from
+their open hands, and the warlike profligates demanded new plunder.
+
+"We are naked," they bitterly complained, "while the companions of
+Sveneld have beautiful arms and fine clothing. Come with us and levy
+contributions, that we and you may dwell in plenty together."
+
+Igor obeyed--he could not well help himself--and led them against the
+Drevlians, a neighboring nation already under tribute. Marching into
+their country, he forced them to pay still heavier tribute, and allowed
+his soldiers to plunder to their hearts' content.
+
+Then the warriors of Kief marched back, laden with spoils. But the
+wolfish instincts of Igor were aroused. More, he thought, might be
+squeezed out of the Drevlians, but he wanted this extra plunder for
+himself. So he sent his army on to Kief, and went back with a small
+force to the country of the Drevlians, where he held out his hand--with
+the sword in it--for more.
+
+He got more than he bargained for. The Drevlians, driven to extremity,
+came with arms instead of gold, attacked the king and his few followers,
+and killed the whole of them upon the spot. And thus in blood ended the
+career of this white-haired tribute-seeker.
+
+The fallen prince left behind him a widow named Olga and a son named
+Sviatoslaf, who was still a child, as Igor had been at the death of his
+father. So Olga became regent of the kingdom, and Sveneld was made
+leader of the army.
+
+How deeply Olga loved Igor we are not prepared to say, but we are told
+some strange tales of what she did to avenge him. These tales we may
+believe or not, as we please. They are legends only, like those of early
+Rome, but they are all the history we have, and so we repeat the story
+much as old Nestor has told it.
+
+The death of Igor filled the hearts of the Drevlians with hope. Their
+great enemy was gone; the new prince was a child: might they not gain
+power as well as liberty? Their prince Male should marry Olga the widow,
+and all would be well with them.
+
+So twenty of their leading men were sent to Kief, where they presented
+themselves to the queenly regent. Their offer of an alliance was made in
+terms suited to the manners of the times.
+
+"We have killed your husband," they said, "because he plundered and
+devoured like a wolf. But we would be at peace with you and yours. We
+have good princes, under whom our country thrives. Come and marry our
+prince Male and be our queen."
+
+Olga listened like one who weighed the offer deeply.
+
+"After all," she said, "my husband is dead, and I cannot bring him to
+life again. Your proposal seems good to me. Leave me now, and come again
+to-morrow, when I will entertain you before my people as you deserve.
+Return to your barks, and when my people come to you to-morrow, say to
+them, 'We will not go on horseback or on foot; you must carry us in our
+barks.' Thus you will be honored as I desire you to be."
+
+Back went the Drevlians, glad at heart, for the queen had seemed to them
+very gracious indeed. But Olga had a deep and wide pit dug before a
+house outside the city, and next day she went to that house and sent for
+the ambassadors.
+
+"We will not go on foot or on horseback," they said to the messengers;
+"carry us in our barks."
+
+"We are your slaves," answered the men of Kief. "Our ruler is slain, and
+our princess is willing to marry your prince."
+
+So they took up on their shoulders the barks, in which the Drevlians
+proudly sat like kings on their thrones, and carried them to the front
+of the house in which Olga awaited them with smiling lips but ruthless
+heart.
+
+There, at a sign from her hand, the ambassadors and the barks in which
+they sat were flung headlong into the yawning pit.
+
+"How do you like your entertainment?" asked the cruel queen.
+
+"Oh!" they cried, in terror, "pity us! Forgive us the death of Igor!"
+
+But they begged in vain, for at her command the pit was filled up and
+the Drevlians were buried alive.
+
+Then Olga sent messengers to the land of the Drevlians, with this
+message to their prince:
+
+"If you really wish for me, send me men of the highest consideration in
+your country, that my people may be induced to let me go, and that I may
+come to you with honor and dignity."
+
+This message had its effect. The chief men of the country were now sent
+as ambassadors. They entered Kief over the grave of their murdered
+countrymen without knowing where they trod, and came to the palace
+expecting to be hospitably entertained.
+
+Olga had a bath made ready for them, and sent them word,--
+
+"First take a bath, that you may refresh yourselves after the fatigue of
+your journey, then come into my presence."
+
+The bath was heated, and the Drevlians entered it. But, to their dismay,
+smoke soon began to circle round them, and flames flashed on their
+frightened eyes. They ran to the doors, but they were immovable. Olga
+had ordered them to be made fast and the house to be set on fire, and
+the miserable bathers were all burned alive.
+
+But even this terrible revenge was not enough for the implacable widow.
+Those were days when news crept slowly, and the Drevlians did not dream
+of Olga's treachery. Once more she sent them a deceitful message: "I am
+about to repair to you, and beg you to get ready a large quantity of
+hydromel in the place where my husband was killed, that I may weep over
+his tomb and honor him with the trizna [funeral banquet]."
+
+The Drevlians, full of joy at this message, gathered honey in quantities
+and brewed it into hydromel. Then Olga sought the tomb, followed by a
+small guard who were only lightly armed. For a while she wept over the
+tomb. Then she ordered a great mound of honor to be heaped over it. When
+this was done she directed the trizna to be set out.
+
+The Drevlians drank freely, while the men of Kief served them with the
+intoxicating beverage.
+
+"Where are the friends whom we sent to you?" they asked.
+
+"They are coming with the friends of my husband," she replied.
+
+And so the feast went on until the unsuspecting Drevlians were stupid
+with drink. Then Olga bade her guards draw their weapons and slay her
+foes, and a great slaughter began. When it ended, five thousand
+Drevlians lay dead at her feet.
+
+Olga's revenge was far from being complete: her thirst for blood grew as
+it was fed. She returned to Kief, collected her army, took her young son
+with her that he might early learn the art of war, and returned inspired
+by the rage of vengeance to the land of the Drevlians.
+
+Here she laid waste the country and destroyed the towns. In the end she
+came to the capital, Korosten, and laid siege to it. Its name meant
+"wall of bark," so that it was, no doubt, a town of wood, as probably
+all the Russian towns at that time were.
+
+The siege went on, but the inhabitants defended themselves obstinately,
+for they knew now the spirit of the woman with whom they had to contend.
+So a long time passed and Korosten still held out.
+
+Finding that force would not serve, Olga tried stratagem, in which she
+was such an adept.
+
+"Why do you hold out so foolishly?" she said. "You know that all your
+other towns are in my power, and your countrypeople are peacefully
+tilling their fields while you are uselessly dying of hunger. You would
+be wise to yield; you have no more to fear from me; I have taken full
+revenge for my slain husband."
+
+The Drevlians, to conciliate her, offered a tribute of honey and furs.
+This she refused, with a show of generosity, and said that she would ask
+no more from them than a tribute of a pigeon and three sparrows from
+each house.
+
+Gladdened by the lightness of this request, the Drevlians quickly
+gathered the birds asked for, and sent them out to the invading army.
+They did not dream what treachery lay in Olga's cruel heart. That
+evening she let all the birds loose with lighted matches tied to their
+tails. Back to their nests in the town they flew, and soon Korosten was
+in flames in a thousand places.
+
+In terror the inhabitants fled through their gates, but the soldiers of
+the bloodthirsty queen awaited them outside, sword in hand, with orders
+to cut them down without mercy as they appeared. The prince and all the
+leading men of the state perished, and only the lowest of the populace
+were left alive, while the whole land thereafter was laid under a load
+of tribute so heavy that it devastated the country like an invading army
+and caused the people to groan bitterly beneath the burden.
+
+And thus it was that Olga the widow took revenge upon the murderers of
+her fallen lord.
+
+
+
+
+_VLADIMIR THE GREAT._
+
+
+Vladimir, Grand Prince of Russia before and after the year 1000, won the
+name not only of Vladimir the Great but of St. Vladimir, though he was
+as great a reprobate as he was a soldier and monarch, and as
+unregenerate a sinner as ever sat on a throne. But it was he who made
+Russia a Christian country, and in reward the Russian Church still looks
+upon him as "coequal with the Apostles." What he did to deserve this
+high honor we shall see.
+
+Sviatoslaf, the son of Olga, had proved a hardy soldier. He disdained
+the palace and lived in the camp. In his marches he took no tent or
+baggage, but slept in the open air, lived on horse-flesh broiled by
+himself upon the coals, and showed all the endurance of a Cossack
+warrior born in the snows. After years of warfare he fell on the field
+of battle, and his skull, ornamented with a circle of gold, became a
+drinking-cup for the prince of the Petchenegans, by whose hands he had
+been slain. His empire was divided between his three sons, Yaropolk
+reigning in Kief, Oleg becoming prince of the Drevlians, and Vladimir
+taking Rurik's old capital of Novgorod.
+
+These brothers did not long dwell in harmony. War broke out between
+Yaropolk and Oleg, and the latter was killed. Vladimir, fearing that his
+turn would come next, fled to the country of the Varangians, and
+Yaropolk became lord over all Russia. It is the story of the fugitive
+prince, and how he made his way from flight to empire and from empire to
+sainthood, that we are now about to tell.
+
+For two years Vladimir dwelt with his Varangian kinsmen, during which
+time he lived the wild life of a Norseman, joining the bold vikings in
+their raids for booty far and wide over the seas of Europe. Then,
+gathering a large band of Varangian adventurers, he returned to
+Novgorod, drove out the men of Yaropolk, and sent word by them to his
+brother that he would soon call upon him at Kief.
+
+Vladimir quickly proved himself a prince of barbarian instincts. In
+Polotsk ruled Rogvolod, a Varangian prince, whose daughter Rogneda,
+famed for her beauty, was betrothed to Yaropolk. Vladimir demanded her
+hand, but received an insulting reply.
+
+"I will never unboot the son of a slave," said the haughty princess.
+
+It was the custom at that time for brides, on the wedding night, to pull
+off the boots of their husbands; and Vladimir's mother had been one of
+Queen Olga's slave women.
+
+But insults like this, to men like Vladimir, are apt to breed bloodshed.
+Hot with revengeful fury, he marched against Polotsk, killed in battle
+Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced the disdainful princess to accept
+his hand still red with her father's blood.
+
+Then he marched against Kief, where Yaropolk, who seems to have had more
+ambition than courage, shut himself up within the walls. These walls
+were strong, the people were faithful, and Kief might long have defied
+its assailant had not treachery dwelt within. Vladimir had secretly
+bought over a villain named Blude, one of Yaropolk's trusted
+councillors, who filled his master's mind with suspicion of the people
+of Kief and persuaded him to fly for safety. His flight gave Kief into
+his brother's hands.
+
+To Rodnia fled the fugitive prince, where he was closely besieged by
+Vladimir, to whose aid came a famine so fierce that it still gives point
+to a common Russian proverb. Flight or surrender became necessary.
+Yaropolk might have found strong friends among some of the powerful
+native tribes, but the voice of the traitor was still at his ear, and at
+Blude's suggestion he gave himself up to Vladimir. It was like the sheep
+yielding himself to the wolf. By the victor's order Yaropolk was slain
+in his father's palace.
+
+And now the traitor sought his reward. Vladimir felt that it was to
+Blude he owed his empire, and for three days he so loaded him with
+honors and dignities that the false-hearted wretch deemed himself the
+greatest among the Russians.
+
+But the villain had been playing with edge tools. At the end of the
+three days Vladimir called Blude before him.
+
+"I have kept all my promises to you," he said. "I have treated you as my
+friend; your honors exceed your highest wishes; I have made you lord
+among my lords. But now," he continued, and his voice grew terrible,
+"the judge succeeds the benefactor. Traitor and assassin of your
+prince, I condemn you to death."
+
+And at his stern command the startled and trembling traitor was struck
+dead in his presence.
+
+The tide of affairs had strikingly turned. Vladimir, late a fugitive,
+was now lord of all the realm of Russia. His power assured, he showed
+himself in a new aspect. Yaropolk's widow, a Greek nun of great beauty,
+was forced to become his wife. Not content with two, he continued to
+marry until he had no less than six wives, while he filled his palaces
+with the daughters of his subjects until they numbered eight hundred in
+all.
+
+"Thereby hangs a tale," as Shakespeare says. Rogneda, Vladimir's first
+wife, had forgiven him for the murder of her father and brothers, but
+could not forgive him for the insult of turning her out of his palace
+and putting other women in her place. She determined to be revenged.
+
+One day when he had gone to see her in the lonely abode to which she had
+been banished, he fell asleep in her presence. Here was the opportunity
+her heart craved. Seizing a dagger, she was on the point of stabbing him
+where he lay, when Vladimir awoke and stopped the blow. While the
+frightened woman stood trembling before him, he furiously bade her
+prepare for death, as she should die by his own hand.
+
+"Put on your wedding dress," he harshly commanded; "seek your handsomest
+apartment, and stretch yourself on the sumptuous bed you there possess.
+Die you must, but you have been honored as the wife of Vladimir, and
+shall not meet an ignoble death."
+
+Rogneda did as she was bidden, yet hope had not left her heart, and she
+taught her young son Isiaslaf a part which she wished him to play. When
+the frowning prince entered the apartment where lay his condemned wife,
+he was met by the boy, who presented him with a drawn sword, saying,
+"You are not alone, father. Your son will be witness to your deed."
+
+Vladimir's expression changed as he looked at the appealing face of the
+child.
+
+"Who thought of seeing you here?" he cried, and, flinging the sword to
+the floor, he hastily left the room.
+
+Calling his nobles together, he told them what had happened and asked
+their advice.
+
+"Prince," they said, "you should spare the culprit for the sake of the
+child. Our advice is that you make the boy lord of Rogvolod's
+principality."
+
+Vladimir did so, sending Rogneda with her son to rule over her father's
+realm, where he built a new city which he named after the boy.
+
+Vladimir had been born a pagan, and a pagan he was still, worshipping
+the Varangian deities, in particular the god Perune, of whom he had a
+statue erected on a hill near his palace, adorned with a silver head. On
+the same sacred hill were planted the statues of other idols, and
+Vladimir proposed to restore the old human sacrifices by offering one of
+his own people as a victim to the gods.
+
+For this purpose there was selected a young Varangian who, with his
+father, had adopted the Christian faith. The father refused to give up
+his son, and the enraged people, who looked on the refusal as an insult
+to their prince and their gods, broke into the house and murdered both
+father and son. These two have since been canonized by the Russian
+Church as the only martyrs to its faith.
+
+Vladimir by this time had become great in dominion, his warlike prowess
+extending the borders of Russia on all sides. The nations to the south
+saw that a great kingdom had arisen on their northern border, ruled by a
+warlike and conquering prince, and it was deemed wise to seek to win him
+from the worship of idols to a more elevated faith. Askhold and Dir had
+been baptized as Christians. Olga, after her bloody revenge, had gone to
+Constantinople and been baptized by the patriarch. But the nation
+continued pagan, Vladimir was an idolater in grain, and a great field
+lay open for missionary zeal.
+
+No less than four of the peoples of the south sought to make a convert
+of this powerful prince. The Bulgarians endeavored to win him to the
+religion of Mohammed, picturing to him in alluring language the charms
+of their paradise, with its lovely houris. But he must give up wine.
+This was more than he was ready to do.
+
+"Wine is the delight of the Russians," he said: "we cannot do without
+it."
+
+The envoys of the Christian churches and the Jewish faith also sought to
+win him over. The appeal of the Jews, however, failed to impress him,
+and he dismissed them with the remark that they had no country, and
+that he had no inclination to join hands with wanderers under the ban of
+Heaven. There remained the Christians, comprising the Roman and Greek
+Churches, at that time in unison. Of these the Greek Church, the claims
+of which were presented to him by an advocate from Constantinople,
+appealed to him most strongly, since its doctrines had been accepted by
+Queen Olga.
+
+As may be seen, religion with Vladimir was far more a matter of policy
+than of piety. The gods of his fathers, to whom he had done such honor,
+had no abiding place in his heart; and that belief which would be most
+to his advantage was for him the best.
+
+To settle the question he sent ten of his chief boyars, or nobles, to
+the south, that they might examine and report on the religions of the
+different countries. They were not long in coming to a decision.
+Mohammedanism and Catholicism, they said, they had found only in poor
+and barbarous provinces. Judaism had no land to call its own. But the
+Greek faith dwelt in a magnificent metropolis, and its ceremonies were
+full of pomp and solemnity.
+
+"If the Greek religion were not the best," they said, in conclusion,
+"Olga, your ancestress, and the wisest of mortals, would never have
+thought of embracing it."
+
+Pomp and solemnity won the day, and Vladimir determined to follow Olga's
+example. As to what religion meant in itself he seems to have thought
+little and cared less. His method of becoming a Christian was so
+original that it is well worth the telling.
+
+Since the days of Olga Kief had possessed Christian churches and
+priests, and Vladimir might easily have been baptized without leaving
+home. But this was far too simple a process for a prince of his dignity.
+He must be baptized by a bishop of the parent Church, and the
+missionaries who were to convert his people must come from the central
+home of the faith.
+
+Should he ask the emperor for the rite of baptism? Not he; it would be
+too much like rendering homage to a prince no greater than himself. The
+haughty barbarian found himself in a quandary; but soon he discovered a
+promising way out of it. He would make war on Greece, conquer priests
+and churches, and by force of arms obtain instruction and baptism in the
+new faith. Surely never before or since was a war waged with the object
+of winning a new religion.
+
+Gathering a large army, Vladimir marched to the Crimea, where stood the
+rich and powerful Greek city of Kherson. The ruins of this city may
+still be seen near the modern Sevastopol. To it he laid siege, warning
+the inhabitants that it would be wise in them to yield, for he was
+prepared to remain three years before their walls.
+
+The Khersonites proved obstinate, and for six months he besieged them
+closely. But no progress was made, and it began to look as if Vladimir
+would never become a Christian in his chosen mode. A traitor within the
+walls, however, solved the difficulty. He shot from the ramparts an
+arrow to which a letter was attached, in which the Russians were told
+that the city obtained all its fresh water from a spring near their
+camp, to which ran underground pipes. Vladimir cut the pipes, and the
+city, in peril of the horrors of thirst, was forced to yield.
+
+Baptism was now to be had from the parent source, but Vladimir was still
+not content. He demanded to be united by ties of blood to the emperors
+of the southern realm, asking for the hand of Anna, the emperor's
+sister, and threatening to take Constantinople if his proposal were
+rejected.
+
+Never before had a convert come with such conditions. The princess Anna
+had no desire for marriage with this haughty barbarian, but reasons of
+state were stronger than questions of taste, and the emperors (there
+were two of them at that time) yielded. Vladimir, having been baptized
+under the name of Basil, married the princess Anna, and the city he had
+taken as a token of his pious zeal was restored to his new kinsmen. All
+that he took back to Russia with him were a Christian wife, some bishops
+and priests, sacred vessels and books, images of saints, and a number of
+consecrated relics.
+
+Vladimir displayed a zeal in his new faith in accordance with the
+trouble he had taken to win it. The old idols he had worshipped were now
+the most despised inmates of his realm. Perune, as the greatest of them
+all, was treated with the greatest indignity. The wooden image of the
+god was tied to the tail of a horse and dragged to the Borysthenes,
+twelve stout soldiers belaboring it with cudgels as it went. The banks
+reached, it was flung with disdain into the river.
+
+At Novgorod the god was treated with like indignity, but did not bear
+it with equal patience. The story goes that, being flung from a bridge
+into the Volkhof, the image of Perune rose to the surface of the water,
+threw a staff upon the bridge, and cried out in a terrifying voice,
+"Citizens, that is what I leave you in remembrance of me."
+
+In consequence of this legend it was long the custom in that city, on
+the day which was kept as the anniversary of the god, for the young
+people to run about with sticks in their hands, striking one another
+unawares.
+
+As for the Russians in general, they discarded their old worship as
+easily as the prince had thrown overboard their idols. One day a
+proclamation was issued at Kief, commanding all the people to repair to
+the river-bank the next day, there to be baptized. They assented without
+a murmur, saying, "If it were not good to be baptized, the prince and
+the boyars would never submit to it."
+
+These were not the only signs of Vladimir's zeal. He built churches, he
+gave alms freely, he set out public repasts in imitation of the
+love-feasts of the early Christians. His piety went so far that he even
+forbore to shed the blood of criminals or of the enemies of his country.
+
+But horror of bloodshed did not lie long on Vladimir's conscience. In
+his later life he had wars in plenty, and the blood of his enemies was
+shed as freely as water. These wars were largely against the
+Petchenegans, the most powerful of his foes. And in connection with them
+there is a story extant which has its parallel in the history of many
+another country.
+
+It seems that in one of their campaigns the two armies came face to face
+on the opposite sides of a small stream. The prince of the Petchenegans
+now proposed to Vladimir to settle their quarrel by single combat and
+thus spare the lives of their people. The side whose champion was
+vanquished should bind itself to a peace lasting for three years.
+
+Vladimir was loath to consent, as he felt sure that his opponents had
+ready a champion of mighty power. He felt forced in honor to accept the
+challenge, but asked for delay that he might select a worthy champion.
+
+Whom to select he knew not. No soldier of superior strength and skill
+presented himself. Uneasiness and agitation filled his mind. But at this
+critical interval an old man, who served in the army with four of his
+sons, came to him, saying that he had at home a fifth son of
+extraordinary strength, whom he would offer as champion.
+
+The young man was sent for in great haste. On his arrival, to test his
+powers, a bull was sent against him which had been goaded into fury with
+hot irons. The young giant stopped the raging brute, knocked him down,
+and tore off great handfuls of his skin and flesh. Hope came to
+Vladimir's soul on witnessing this wonderful feat.
+
+The day arrived. The champions advanced between the camps. The
+Petchenegan warrior laughed in scorn on seeing his beardless antagonist.
+But when they came to blows he found himself seized and crushed as in a
+vice in the arms of his boyish foe, and was flung, a lifeless body, to
+the earth. On seeing this the Petchenegans fled in dismay, while the
+Russians, forgetting their pledge, pursued and slaughtered them without
+mercy.
+
+Vladimir at length (1015 A.D.) came to his end. His son Yaroslaf, whom
+he had made ruler of Novgorod, had refused to pay tribute, and the old
+prince, forced to march against his rebel son, died of grief on the way.
+
+With all his faults, Vladimir deserved the title of Great which his
+country has given him. He put down the turbulent tribes, planted
+colonies in the desert, built towns, and embellished his cities with
+churches, palaces, and other buildings, for which workmen were brought
+from Greece. Russia grew rapidly under his rule. He established schools
+which the sons of the nobles were made to attend. And though he was but
+a poor pattern for a saint, he had the merit of finding Russia pagan and
+leaving it Christian.
+
+[Illustration: CATHEDRAL AT OSTANKINO, NEAR MOSCOW.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE LAWGIVER OF RUSSIA._
+
+
+The Russia of the year 1000 lay deep in the age of barbarism. Vladimir
+had made it Christian in name, but it was far from Christian in thought
+or deed. It was a land without fixed laws, without settled government,
+without schools, without civilized customs, but with abundance of
+ignorance, cruelty, and superstition.
+
+It was strangely made up. In the north lay the great commercial city of
+Novgorod, which, though governed by princes of the house of Rurik, was a
+republic in form and in fact. It possessed its popular assembly, of
+which every citizen was a member with full right to vote, and at whose
+meetings the prince was not permitted to appear. The sound of a famous
+bell, the Vetchevoy, called the people together, to decide on questions
+of peace and war, or to elect magistrates, and sometimes the bishop, or
+even the prince. The prince had to swear to carry out the ancient laws
+of the republic and not attempt to lay taxes on the citizens or to
+interfere with their trade. They made him gifts, but paid him no taxes.
+They decided how many hours he should give to pleasure and how many to
+business; and they expelled some of their princes who thought themselves
+beyond the power of the laws.
+
+It seems strange that the absolute Russia of to-day should then have
+possessed one of the freest of the cities of Europe. Novgorod was not
+only a city, it was a state. The provinces far and wide around were
+subject to it, and governed by its prince, who had in them an authority
+much greater than he possessed over the proud civic merchants and money
+lords.
+
+In the south, on the contrary, lay the great imperial city of Kief, the
+capital of the realm, and the seat of a government as arbitrary as that
+of Novgorod was free. Here dwelt the grand prince as an irresponsible
+autocrat, making his will the law, and forcing all the provinces, even
+haughty Novgorod, to pay a tax which bore the slavish title of tribute.
+Here none could vote, no assembly of citizens ever met, and the only
+restraint on the prince was that of his warlike and turbulent nobles,
+who often forced him to yield to their wishes. The government was a
+drifting rather than a settled one. It had no anchors out, but was moved
+about at the whim of the prince and his unruly lords.
+
+Under these two forms of government lay still a third. Rural Russia was
+organized on a democratic principle which still prevails throughout that
+broad land. This is the principle of the Mir, or village community,
+which most of the people of the earth once possessed, but which has
+everywhere passed away except in Russia and India. It is the principle
+of the commune, of public instead of private property. The land of a
+Russian village belongs to the people as a whole, not to individuals. It
+is divided up among them for tillage, but no man can claim the fields
+he tills as his own, and for thousands of years what is known as
+communism has prevailed on Russian soil.
+
+The government of the village is purely democratic. All the people meet
+and vote for their village magistrate, who decides, with the aid of a
+council of the elders, all the questions which arise within its
+confines, one of them being the division of the land. Thus at bottom
+Russia is a field sown thick with little communistic republics, though
+at top it is a despotism. The government of Novgorod doubtless grew out
+of that of the village. The republican city has long since passed away,
+but the seed of democracy remains planted deeply in the village
+community.
+
+All this is preliminary to the story of the Russian lawgiver and his
+laws, which we have set out to tell. This famous person was no other
+than that Yaroslaf, prince of Novgorod, and son of Vladimir the Great,
+whose refusal to pay tribute had caused his father to die of grief.
+
+Yaroslaf was the fifth able ruler of the dynasty of Rurik. The story of
+his young life resembles that of his father. He found his brother strong
+and threatening, and designed to fly from Novgorod and join the
+Varangians as a viking lord, as his father had done before him. But the
+Novgorodians proved his friends, destroyed the ships that were to carry
+him away, and provided him with money to raise a new army. With this he
+defeated his base brother, who had already killed or driven into exile
+all their other brothers. The result was that Yaroslof, like his father,
+became sovereign of all Russia.
+
+But though this new grand prince extended his dominions by the sword,
+it was not as a soldier, but as a legislator, that he won fame. His
+genius was not shown on the field of battle, but in the legislative
+council, and Russia reveres Yaroslaf the Wise as its first maker of
+laws.
+
+The free institutions of Novgorod, of which we have spoken, were by him
+sustained and strengthened. Many new cities were founded under his
+beneficent rule. Schools were widely established, in one of which three
+hundred of the youth of Novgorod were educated. A throng of Greek
+priests were invited into the land, since there were none of Russian
+birth to whom he could confide the duty of teaching the young. He gave
+toleration to the idolaters who still existed, and when the people of
+Suzdal were about to massacre some hapless women whom they accused of
+having brought on a famine by sorcery, he stayed their hands and saved
+the poor victims from death. The Russian Church owed its first national
+foundation to him, for he declared that the bishops of the land should
+no longer depend for appointment on the Patriarch of Constantinople.
+
+There are no startling or dramatic stories to be told about Yaroslaf.
+The heroes of peace are not the men who make the world's dramas. But it
+is pleasant, after a season spent with princes who lived for war and
+revenge, and who even made war to obtain baptism, to rest awhile under
+the green boughs and beside the pleasant waters of a reign that became
+famous for the triumphs of peace.
+
+Under Yaroslaf Russia united itself by ties of blood to Western Europe.
+His sons married Greek, German, and English princesses; his sister
+became queen of Poland; his three daughters were queens of Norway,
+Hungary, and France. Scandinavian in origin, the dynasty of Rurik was
+reaching out hands of brotherhood towards its kinsmen in the West.
+
+But it is as a law-maker that Yaroslaf is chiefly known. Before his time
+the empire had no fixed code of laws. To say that it was without law
+would not be correct. Every people, however ignorant, has its laws of
+custom, unwritten edicts, the birth of the ages, which have grown up
+stage by stage, and which are only slowly outgrown as the tribe develops
+into the nation.
+
+Russia had, besides Novgorod, other commercial cities, with republican
+institutions. Kief was certainly not without law. And the many tribes of
+hunters, shepherds, and farmers must have had their legal customs. But
+with all this there was no code for the empire, no body of written laws.
+The first of these was prepared about 1018 by Yaroslaf, for Novgorod
+alone, but in time became the law of all the land. This early code of
+Russian law is a remarkable one, and goes farther than history at large
+in teaching us the degree of civilization of Russia at that date.
+
+In connection with it the chronicles tell a curious story. In 1018, we
+are told, Novgorod, having grown weary of the insults and oppression of
+its Varangian lords and warriors, killed them all. Angry at this,
+Yaroslaf enticed the leading Novgorodians into his palace and
+slaughtered them in reprisal. But at this critical interval, when his
+guards were slain and his subjects in rebellion, he found himself
+threatened by his ambitious brother. In despair he turned to the
+Novgorodians and begged with tears for pardon and assistance. They
+forgave and aided him, and by their help made him sovereign of the
+empire.
+
+How far this is true it is impossible to say, but the code of Yaroslaf
+was promulgated at that date, and the rights given to Novgorod showed
+that its people held the reins of power. It confirmed the city in the
+ancient liberties of which we have already spoken, giving it a freedom
+which no other city of its time surpassed. And it laid down a series of
+laws for the people at large which seem very curious in this enlightened
+age. It must suffice to give the leading features of this ancient code.
+
+It began by sustaining the right of private vengeance. The law was for
+the weak alone, the strong being left to avenge their own wrongs. The
+punishment of crime was provided for by judicial combats, which the law
+did not even regulate. Every strong man was a law unto himself.
+
+Where no avengers of crime appeared, murder was to be settled by fines.
+For the murder of a boyar eighty grivnas were to be paid, and forty for
+the murder of a free Russian, but only half as much if the victim was a
+woman. Here we have a standard of value for the women of that age.
+
+Nothing was paid into the treasury for the murder of a slave, but his
+master had to be paid his value, unless he had been slain for insulting
+a freeman. His value was reckoned according to his occupation, and
+ranged from twelve to five grivnas.
+
+If it be asked what was the value of a grivna, it may be said that at
+that time there was little coined money, perhaps none at all, in Russia.
+Gold and silver were circulated by weight, and the common currency was
+composed of pieces of skin, called _kuni_. A grivna was a certain number
+of kunis equal in value to half a pound of silver, but the kuni often
+varied in value.
+
+All prisoners of war and all persons bought from foreigners were
+condemned to perpetual slavery. Others became slaves for limited
+periods,--freemen who married slaves, insolvent debtors, servants out of
+employment, and various other classes. As the legal interest of money
+was forty per cent., the enslavement of debtors must have been very
+common, and Russia was even then largely a land of slaves.
+
+The loss of a limb was fined almost as severely as that of a life. To
+pluck out part of the beard cost four times as much as to cut off a
+finger, and insults in general were fined four times as heavily as
+wounds. Horse-stealing was punished by slavery. In discovering the
+guilty the ordeals of red-hot iron and boiling water were in use, as in
+the countries of the West.
+
+There were three classes in the nation,--slaves, freemen, and boyars, or
+nobles, the last being probably the descendants of Rurik's warriors. The
+prince was the heir of all citizens who died without male children,
+except of boyars and the officers of his guard.
+
+These laws, which were little more primitive than those of Western
+Europe at the same period, seem never to have imposed corporal
+punishment for crime. Injury was made good by cash, except in the case
+of the combat. The fines went to the lord or prince, and were one of his
+means of support, the other being tribute from his estates. No provision
+for taxation was made. The mark of dependence on the prince was military
+service, the lord, as in the feudal West, being obliged to provide his
+own arms, provisions, and mounted followers.
+
+Judges there were, who travelled on circuits, and who impanelled twelve
+respectable jurors, sworn to give just verdicts. There are several laws
+extending protection to property, fixed and movable, which seem
+specially framed for the merchants of Novgorod.
+
+Such are the leading features of the code of Yaroslaf. The franchises
+granted the Novgorodians, which for four centuries gave them the right
+to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," form part of it. Crude
+as are many of its provisions, it forms a vital starting-point, that in
+which Russia first came under definite in place of indefinite law. And
+the bringing about of this important change is the glory of Yaroslaf the
+Wise.
+
+
+
+
+_THE YOKE OF THE TARTARS._
+
+
+In Asia, the greatest continent of the earth, lies its most extensive
+plain, the vast plateau of Mongolia, whose true boundaries are the
+mountains of Siberia and the Himalayan highlands, the Pacific Ocean and
+the hills of Eastern Europe, and of which the great plain of Russia is
+but an outlying section. This mighty plateau, largely a desert, is the
+home of the nomad shepherd and warrior, the nesting-place of the
+emigrant invader. From these broad levels in the past horde after horde
+of savage horsemen rode over Europe and Asia,--the frightful Huns, the
+devastating Turks, the desolating Mongols. It is with the last that we
+are here concerned, for Russia fell beneath their arms, and was held for
+two centuries as a captive realm.
+
+The nomads are born warriors. They live on horseback; the care of their
+great herds teaches them military discipline; they are always in motion,
+have no cities to defend, no homes to abandon, no crops to harvest.
+Their home is a camp; when they move it moves with them; their food is
+on the hoof and accompanies them on the march; they can go hungry for a
+week and then eat like cormorants; their tools are weapons, always in
+hand, always ready to use; a dozen times they have burst like a
+devouring torrent from their desert and overwhelmed the South and West.
+
+While the Turks were still engaged in their work of conquest, the
+Mongols arose, and under the formidable Genghis Khan swept over Southern
+Asia like a tornado, leaving death and desolation in their track. The
+conqueror died in 1227,--for death is a foe that vanquishes even the
+greatest of warriors,--and was succeeded by his son Octoi, as Great Khan
+of the Mongols and Tartars. In 1235, Batou, nephew of the khan, was sent
+with an army of half a million men to the conquest of Europe.
+
+This flood of barbarians fell upon Russia at an unfortunate time, one of
+anarchy and civil war, when the whole nation was rent and torn and there
+were almost as many sovereigns as there were cities. The system of
+giving a separate dominion to every son of a grand prince had ruined
+Russia. These small potentates were constantly at war, confusion reigned
+supreme, Kief was taken and degraded and a new capital, Vladimir,
+established, and Moscow, which was to become the fourth capital of
+Russia, was founded. Such was the state of affairs when Batou, with his
+vast horde of savage horsemen, fell on the distracted realm.
+
+Defence was almost hopeless. Russia had no government, no army, no
+imperial organization. Each city stood for itself, with great widths of
+open country around. Over these broad spaces the invaders swept like an
+avalanche, finding cultivated fields before them, leaving a desert
+behind. They swam the Don, the Volga, and the other great rivers on
+their horses, or crossed them on the ice. Leathern boats brought over
+their wagons and artillery. They spread from Livonia to the Black Sea,
+poured into the kingdoms of the West, and would have overrun all Europe
+but for the vigorous resistance of the knighthood of Germany.
+
+The cities of Russia made an obstinate defence, but one after another
+they fell. Some saved themselves by surrender. Most of them were taken
+by assault and destroyed. City after city was reduced to ashes, none of
+the inhabitants being left to deplore their fall. The nomads had no use
+for cities. Walls were their enemies: pasturage was all they cared for.
+The conversion of a country into a desert was to them a gain rather than
+a loss, for grass will grow in the desert, and grass to feed their
+horses and herds was what they most desired.
+
+So far as the warriors of Mongolia were concerned, their conquests left
+them no better off. They still had to tend and feed their herds, and
+they could have done that as well in their native land. But the leaders
+had the lust of dominion, their followers the blood-fury, and inspired
+by these feelings they ravaged the world.
+
+One thing alone saved Russia from being peopled by Tartars,--its
+climate. This was not to their liking, and they preferred to dwell in
+lands better suited to their tastes and habits. The great Tartar empire
+of Kaptchak, or the Golden Horde, was founded on the eastern frontier;
+other khanates were founded in the south; but the Russian princes were
+left to rule in the remainder of the land, under tribute to the khans,
+to whom they were forced to do homage. In truth, these Tartar chiefs
+made themselves lords paramount of the Russian realm, and no prince,
+great or small, could assume the government of his state until he had
+journeyed to Central Mongolia to beg permission to rule from the khan of
+the Great Horde.
+
+The subjection of the princes was that of slaves. A century afterward
+they were obliged to spread a carpet of sable fur under the hoofs of the
+steed of the khan's envoy, to prostrate themselves at his feet and learn
+his mission on their knees, and not only to present a cup of koumiss to
+the barbarian, but even to lick from the neck of his horse the drops of
+the beverage which he might let fall in drinking. More shameful
+subjection it would be difficult to describe.
+
+Several princes who proved insubordinate were summoned to the camp of
+the Horde and there tried and executed. Rivals sought the khan, to buy
+power by presents. During their journeys, which occupied a year or more,
+the Tartar bashaks ruled their dominions. Tartar armies aided the
+princes in their civil wars, and helped these ambitious lords to keep
+their country in a state of subjection.
+
+Fortunately for Russia, the great empire of the Mongols gradually fell
+to pieces of its own weight. The Kaptchak, or Golden Horde, broke loose
+from the Great Horde, and Russia had a smaller power to deal with. The
+Golden Horde itself broke into two parts. And among the many princes of
+Russia a grand prince was still acknowledged, with right by title to
+dominion over the entire realm.
+
+One of these grand princes, Alexander by name, son of the grand prince
+of Vladimir, proved a great warrior and statesman and gained the power
+as well as the title. Prince of Novgorod by inheritance, he defeated all
+his enemies, drove the Germans from Russia, and recovered the Neva from
+the Swedes, which feat of arms gained him the title of Alexander Nevsky.
+The Tartars were too powerful to be attacked, so he managed to gain
+their good will. The khan became his friend, and when trouble arose with
+Kief and Vladimir their princes were dethroned and these principalities
+given to the shrewd grand prince.
+
+Russia seemed to be rehabilitated. Alexander was lord of its three
+capitals, Novgorod, Kief, and Vladimir, and grand prince of the realm.
+But the Russians were not content to submit either to his authority or
+to the yoke of the Tartars. His whole life was spent in battle with
+them, or in journeys to the tent of the khan to beg forgiveness for
+their insults.
+
+The climax came when the Tartar collectors of tribute were massacred in
+some cities and ignominiously driven out of others. When these acts
+became known at the Horde the angry khan sent orders for the grand
+prince and all other Russian princes to appear before him and to bring
+all their troops. He said that he was about to make a campaign, and
+needed the aid of the Russians.
+
+This story Alexander did not believe. He plainly perceived that the wily
+Tartar wished to deprive Russia of all its armed men, that he might the
+more easily reduce it again to subjection. Rather than see his country
+ruined, the patriotic prince determined to disobey, and to offer himself
+as a victim by seeking alone the camp of Usbek, the great khan, a
+mission of infinite danger.
+
+He hoped that his submission might save Russia from ruin, though he knew
+that death lay on his path. He found Usbek bitterly bent on war, and for
+a whole year was kept in the camp of the Horde, seeking to appease the
+wrath of the barbarian. In the end he succeeded, the khan promising to
+forgive the Russians and desist from the intended war, and in the year
+1262 Alexander started for home again.
+
+He had seemingly escaped, but not in reality. He had not journeyed far
+before he suddenly died. To all appearance, poison had been mingled with
+his food before he left the camp of the khan. Alexander had become too
+great and powerful at home for the designs of the conquerors. He died
+the victim of his love of country. His people have recognized his virtue
+by making him a saint. He had not labored in vain. In his hands the
+grand princeship had been restored, Vladimir had become supreme, and a
+centre had been established around which the Russians might rally. But
+for a century and more still they were to remain subject to the Tartar
+yoke.
+
+
+
+
+_THE VICTORY OF THE DON._
+
+
+The history of Russia during the century after the Mongol conquest is
+one of shame and anarchy. The shame was that of slavish submission to
+the Tartar khan. Each prince, in succession, fell on his knees before
+this high dignitary of the barbarians and begged or bought his throne.
+The anarchy was that of the Russian princes, on which the khan looked
+with winking eyes, thinking that the more they weakened themselves the
+more they would strengthen him. The rulers of Moscow, Tver, Vladimir,
+and Novgorod fought almost incessantly for supremacy, crushing their
+people beneath the feet of their ambition, now one, now another, gaining
+the upper hand.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF MOSCOW.]
+
+In the end the princes of Moscow became supreme. They grew rich, and
+were able to keep up a regular army, that chief tool of despotism. The
+crown lands alone gave them dominion over three hundred thousand
+subjects. The time was coming in which they would be the absolute rulers
+of all Russia. But before this could be accomplished the power of the
+khans must be broken, and the first step towards this was taken by the
+great Dmitri Donskoi, who became grand prince of Moscow in 1362.
+
+Dmitri came to the throne at a fortunate epoch. The Golden Horde was
+breaking to pieces. There were several khans, at war with one another,
+and discord ruled among the overlords of Russia. Still greater discord
+reigned in Russia itself. For eighteen years Dmitri was kept busy in
+wars with the princes of Tver, Kief, and Lithuania. Terrible was the war
+with Tver. Four times he overcame Michael, its prince. Four times did
+Michael, aided by the prince of Lithuania, gain the victory. During this
+obstinate conflict Moscow was twice besieged. Only its stone walls,
+lately built, saved it from capture and ruin. At length Olguerd, the
+fiery prince of Lithuania, died, and Tver yielded. Moscow became
+paramount among the Russian principalities.
+
+And now Dmitri, with all Russia as his realm, dared to defy the terrible
+Tartars. For more than a century no Russian prince had ventured to
+appear before the khan of the Golden Horde except on his knees. Dmitri
+had thus humbled himself only three years before. Now, inflated with his
+new power, he refused to pay tribute to the khan, and went so far as to
+put to death the Tartar envoy, who insolently demanded the accustomed
+payment.
+
+Dmitri had burned his bridges behind him. He had flung down the gage of
+war to the Tartars, and would soon feel their hand in all its dreaded
+strength. The khan, on hearing of the murder of his ambassador, burst
+into a terrible rage. The civil wars which divided the Golden Horde had
+for the time ceased, and Mamai, the khan, gathered all the power of the
+Horde and marched on defiant Moscow, vowing to sweep that rebel city
+from the face of the earth.
+
+The Russians did not wait his coming. All dissensions ceased in the
+face of the impending peril, all the princes sent aid, and Dmitri
+marched to the Don at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men.
+Here he found the redoubtable Mamai with three times that number of the
+fierce Tartar horsemen in his train.
+
+"Yonder lies the foe," said Dmitri to his princely associates. "Here
+runs the Don. Shall we await him here, or cross and meet him with the
+river at our backs?"
+
+"Let us cross," was the unanimous verdict. "Let us be first in the
+assault."
+
+At once the order was given, and the battalions marched on board the
+boats and were ferried across the stream, at a short distance from the
+opposite bank of which the enemy lay. No sooner had they landed than
+Dmitri ordered all the boats to be cast adrift. It was to be victory or
+death; no hope of escape by flight was left; but well he knew that the
+men would fight with double valor under such desperate straits.
+
+The battle began. On the serried Russian ranks the Tartars poured in
+that impetuous assault which had so often carried their hosts to
+victory. The Russians defended themselves with fiery valor, assault
+after assault was repulsed, and so fiercely was the field contested that
+multitudes of the fallen were trampled to death beneath the horses'
+feet. At length, however, numbers began to tell. The Russians grew weary
+from the closeness of the conflict. The vast host of the Tartars enabled
+them to replace with fresh troops all that were worn in the fight.
+Victory seemed about to perch upon their banners.
+
+Dismay crept into the Russian ranks. They would have broken in flight,
+but no avenue of escape was left. The river ran behind them, unruffled
+by a boat. Flight meant death by drowning; fight meant death by the
+sword. Of the two the latter seemed best, for the Russians firmly
+believed that death at the hands of the infidels meant an immediate
+transport to the heavenly mansions of bliss.
+
+At this critical moment, when the host of Dmitri was wavering between
+panic and courage, the men ready to drop their swords through sheer
+fatigue, an unlooked-for diversion inspired their shrinking souls. The
+grand prince had stationed a detachment of his army as a reserve, and
+these, as yet, had taken no part in the battle. Now, fresh and furious,
+they were brought up, and fell vigorously upon the rear of the Tartars,
+who, filled with sudden terror, thought that a new army had come to the
+aid of the old. A moment later they broke and fled, pursued by their
+triumphant foes, and falling fast as they hurried in panic fear from the
+encrimsoned field.
+
+Something like amazement filled the souls of the Russians as they saw
+their dreaded enemies in flight. Such a consummation they had scarcely
+dared hope for, accustomed as they had been for a century to crouch
+before this dreadful foe. They had bought their victory dearly. Their
+dead strewed the ground by thousands. Yet to be victorious over the
+Tartar host seemed to them an ample recompense for an even greater loss
+than that sustained. Eight days were occupied by the survivors in
+burying the slain. As for the Tartar dead, they were left to fester on
+the field. Such was the great victory of the Don, from which Dmitri
+gained his honorable surname of Donskoi. He died nine years afterwards
+(1389), having won the high honor of being the first to vanquish the
+terrible horsemen of the Steppes, firmly founded the authority of the
+grand princes, and made Moscow the paramount power in Russia.
+
+
+
+
+_IVAN, THE FIRST OF THE CZARS._
+
+
+The victory of the Don did not free Russia from the Tartar yoke. Two
+years afterwards the principality of Moscow was overrun and ravaged by a
+lieutenant of the mighty Tamerlane, the all-conquering successor of
+Genghis Khan. Several times Moscow was taken and burned. Full seventy
+years later, at the court of the Golden Horde, two Russian princes might
+have been seen disputing before the great khan the possession of the
+grand principality and tremblingly awaiting his decision. Nevertheless,
+the battle of the Don had sounded the knell of the Tartar power. Anarchy
+continued to prevail in the Golden Horde. The power of the grand princes
+of Moscow steadily grew. The khans themselves played into the hands of
+their foes. Russia was slowly but surely casting off her fetters, and
+deliverance was at hand.
+
+Ivan III., great-grandson of Dmitri Donskoi, ascended the throne in
+1462, nearly two centuries and a half after the Tartar invasion. During
+all that period Russia had been the vassal of the khans. Only now was
+its freedom to come. It was by craft, more than by war, that Ivan won.
+In the field he was a dastard, but in subtlety and perfidy he surpassed
+all other men of his time, and his insidious but persistent policy
+ended by making him the autocrat of all the Russias.
+
+He found powerful enemies outside his dominions,--the Tartars, the
+Lithuanians, and the Poles. He succeeded in defeating them all. He had
+powerful rivals within the domain of Russia. These also he overcame. He
+made Moscow all-powerful, imitated the tyranny of the Tartars, and
+founded the autocratic rule of the czars which has ever since prevailed.
+
+The story of the fall of the Golden Horde may be briefly told. It was
+the work of the Russian army, but not of the Russian prince. In 1469,
+after collecting a large army, Ivan halted and began negotiating. But
+the army was not to be restrained. Disregarding the orders of their
+general, they chose another leader, and assailed and captured Kasan, the
+chief Tartar city. As for the army of the Golden Horde, it was twice
+defeated by the Russian force. In 1480 a third invasion of the Tartars
+took place, which resulted in the annihilation of their force.
+
+The tale, as handed down to us, is a curious one. The army, full of
+martial ardor, had advanced as far as the Oka to meet the Tartars; but
+on the approach of the enemy Ivan, stricken with terror, deserted his
+troops and took refuge in far-off Moscow. He even recalled his son, but
+the brave boy refused to obey, saying that "he would rather die at his
+post than follow the example of his father."
+
+The murmurs of the people, the supplication of the priests, the
+indignation of the boyars, forced him to return to the army, but he
+returned only to cover it with shame and himself with disgrace. For
+when the chill of the coming winter suddenly froze the river between the
+two forces, offering the foe a firm pathway to battle, Ivan, in
+consternation, ordered a retreat, which his haste converted into a
+disorderly flight. Yet the army was two hundred thousand strong and had
+not struck a blow.
+
+Fortune and his allies saved the dastard monarch. For at this perilous
+interval the khan of the Crimea, an ally of Russia, attacked the capital
+of the Golden Horde and forced a hasty recall of its army; and during
+its disorderly homeward march a host of Cossacks fell upon it with such
+fury that it was totally destroyed. Russia, threatened with a new
+subjection to the Tartars by the cowardice of its monarch, was finally
+freed from these dreaded foes through the aid of her allies.
+
+But the fruits of this harvest, sown by others, were reaped by the czar.
+His people, who had been disgusted with his cowardice, now gave him
+credit for the deepest craft and wisdom. All this had been prepared by
+him, they said. His flight was a ruse, his pusillanimity was prudence;
+he had made the Tartars their own destroyers, without risking the fate
+of Russia in a battle; and what had just been condemned as dastard
+baseness was now praised as undiluted wisdom.
+
+Ivan would never have gained the title of Great from his deeds in war.
+He won it, and with some justice, from his deeds in peace. He was great
+in diplomacy, great in duplicity, great in that persistent pursuit of a
+single object through which men rise to power and fame. This object, in
+his case, was autocracy. It was his purpose to crush out the last shreds
+of freedom from Russia, establish an empire on the pernicious pattern of
+a Tartar khanate, which had so long been held up as an example before
+Russian eyes, and make the Prince of Moscow as absolute as the Emperor
+of China. He succeeded. During his reign freedom fled from Russia. It
+has never since returned.
+
+The story of how this great aim was accomplished is too long to be told
+here, and the most important part of it must be left for our next tale.
+It will suffice, at this point, to say that by astute policy and good
+fortune Ivan added to his dominions nineteen thousand square miles of
+territory and four millions of subjects, made himself supreme autocrat
+and his voice the sole arbiter of fate, reduced the boyars and
+subordinate princes to dependence on his throne, established a new and
+improved system of administration in all the details of government, and
+by his marriage with Sophia, the last princess of the Greek imperial
+family,--driven by the Turks from Constantinople to Rome,--gained for
+his standard the two-headed eagle, the symbol of autocracy, and for
+himself the supreme title of czar.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FALL OF NOVGOROD THE GREAT._
+
+
+The Czar of Russia is the one political deity in Europe, the sole
+absolute autocrat. More than a hundred millions of people have delivered
+themselves over, fettered hand and foot, almost body and soul, to the
+ownership of one man, without a voice in their own government, without
+daring to speak, hardly daring to think, otherwise than he approves.
+Thousands of them, millions of them, perhaps, are saying to-day, in the
+words of Hamlet, "It is not and it cannot come to good; but break my
+heart, for I must hold my tongue."
+
+Who is this man, this god of a nation, that he should loom so high? Is
+he a marvel of wisdom, virtue, and nobility, made by nature to wear the
+purple, fashioned of porcelain clay, greater and better than all the
+host to whom his word is the voice of fate? By no means; thousands of
+his subjects tower far above him in virtue and ability, but,
+puppet-like, the noblest and best of them must dance as he pulls the
+strings, and hardly a man in Russia dares to say that his soul is his
+own if the czar says otherwise.
+
+Such a state of affairs is an anachronism in the nineteenth century, a
+hideous relic of the barbarism and anarchy of mediaeval times. In
+America, where every man is a czar, so far as the disposal of himself
+is concerned, the enslavement of the Russians seems a frightful
+disregard of the rights of man, the nation a giant Gulliver bound down
+to the earth by chains of creed and custom, of bureaucracy and perverted
+public opinion. Like Gulliver, it was bound when asleep, and it must
+continue fettered while its intellect remains torpid. Some day it will
+awake, stretch its mighty limbs, burst its feeble bonds, and hurl in
+disarray to the earth the whole host of liliputian officials and
+dignitaries who are strutting in the pride of ownership on its great
+body, the czar tumbling first from his great estate.
+
+This does not seem a proper beginning to a story from Russian history,
+but, to quote from Shakespeare again, "Thereby hangs a tale." The
+history of Russia has, in fact, been a strange one; it began as a
+republic, it has ended as a despotism; and we cannot go on with our work
+without attempting to show how this came about.
+
+It was the Mongol invasion that enslaved Russia. Helped by the khans,
+Moscow gradually rose to supremacy over all the other principalities,
+trod them one by one under her feet, gained power by the aid of Tartar
+swords and spears or through sheer dread of the Tartar name, and when
+the Golden Horde was at length overthrown the Grand Prince took the
+place of the Great Khan and ruled with the same absolute sway. It was
+the absolutism of Asia imported into Europe. Step by step the princes of
+Moscow had copied the system of the khan. This work was finished by Ivan
+the Great, at once the deliverer and the enslaver of Russia, who freed
+that country from the yoke of the khan, but laid upon it a heavier
+burden of servility and shame.
+
+Under the khan there had been insurrection. Under the czar there was
+subjection. The latter state was worse than the former. The subjection
+continues still, but the spirit of insurrection is again rising. The
+time is coming in which the rule of that successor of the Tartar khan,
+miscalled the czar, will end, and the people take into their own hands
+the control of their bodies and souls.
+
+There were republics in Russia even in Ivan's day, free cities which,
+though governed by princes, maintained the republican institutions of
+the past. Chief among these was Novgorod, that Novgorod the Great which
+invited Rurik into Russia and under him became the germ of the vast
+Russian empire. A free city then, a free city it continued. Rurik and
+his descendants ruled by sufferance. Yaroslaf confirmed the free
+institutions which Rurik had respected. For centuries this great
+commercial city continued prosperous and free, becoming in time a member
+of the powerful Hanseatic League. Only for the invasion of the Mongols,
+Novgorod instead of Moscow might have become the prototype of modern
+Russia, and a republic instead of a despotism have been established in
+that mighty land. The sword of the Tartar cast into the scales
+overweighted the balance. It gave Moscow the supremacy, and liberty
+fell.
+
+Ivan the Great, in his determined effort to subject all Russia to his
+autocratic sway, saw before him three republican communities, the free
+cities of Novgorod, Viatka, and Pskof, and took steps to sweep these
+last remnants of ancient freedom from his path. Novgorod, as much the
+most important of these, especially demands our attention. With its fall
+Russian liberty fell to the earth.
+
+At that time Novgorod was one of the richest and most powerful cities of
+the earth. It was an ally rather than a subject of Moscow, and all the
+north of Russia was under its sway and contributed to its wealth. But
+luxury had sapped its strength, and it held its liberties more by
+purchase than by courage. Some of these liberties had already been lost,
+seized by the grand prince. The proud burghers chafed under this
+invasion of their time-honored privileges, and in 1471, inspired by the
+seeming timidity of Ivan, they determined to regain them.
+
+It was a woman that brought about the revolt. Marfa, a rich and
+influential widow of the city, had fallen in love with a Lithuanian,
+and, inspired at once by the passions of love and ambition, sought to
+attach her country to that of her lover. She opened her palace to the
+citizens and lavished on them her treasures, seeking to inspire them
+with her own views. Her efforts were successful: the officers of the
+grand prince were driven out, and his domains seized; and when he
+threatened reprisal they broke into open revolt, and bound themselves by
+treaty to Casimir, prince of Lithuania.
+
+But events were to prove that the turbulent citizens were no match for
+the crafty Ivan, who moved slowly but ever steadily to his goal, and
+made secure each footstep before taking a step in advance. His
+insidious policy roused three separate hostilities against Novgorod. The
+pride of the nobles was stirred up against its democracy; the greed of
+the princes made them eager to seize its wealth; the fanatical people
+were taught that this great city was an apostate to the faith.
+
+These hostile forces proved too much for the city against which they
+were directed. Novgorod was taken and plundered, though Ivan did not yet
+deprive it of its liberties. He had powerful princes to deal with, and
+did not dare to seize so rich a prey without letting them share the
+spoil. But he ruined the city by devastation and plunder, deprived it of
+its tributaries, the city and territory of Perm, and turned from
+Novgorod to Moscow the rich commerce of this section. Taking advantage
+of some doubtful words in the treaty of submission, he held himself to
+be legislator and supreme judge of the captive city. Such was the first
+result of the advice of an ambitious woman.
+
+The next step of the autocrat added to his influence. Novgorod being
+threatened with an attack from Livonia, he sent thither troops and
+envoys to fight and negotiate in his name, thus taking from the city,
+whose resources he had already drained, its old right of making peace
+and war.
+
+The ill feeling between the rich and the poor of Novgorod was fomented
+by his agents; all complaints were required to be made to him; he still
+further impoverished the rich by the presents and magnificent receptions
+which his presence among them demanded, and dazzled the eyes of the
+people by the Oriental state and splendor which had been adopted by the
+court of Moscow, and which he displayed in their midst.
+
+The nobles who had formerly been his enemies now became his victims. He
+had induced the people to denounce them, and at once seized them and
+sent them in chains to Moscow. The people, blinded by this seeming
+attention to their complaints, remained heedless of the violation of the
+ancient law of their republic, "that none of its citizens should ever be
+tried or punished out of the limits of its own territory."
+
+Thus tyranny made its slow way. The citizens, once governed and judged
+by their own peers, now made their appeals to the grand prince and were
+summoned to appear before his tribunal. "Never since Rurik," say the
+annals, "had such an event happened; never had the grand princes of Kief
+and Vladimir seen the Novgorodians come and submit to them as their
+judges. Ivan alone could reduce Novgorod to that degree of humiliation."
+
+This work was done with the deliberation of a settled policy. Ivan did
+not molest Marfa, who had instigated the revolt; his sentences were just
+and equitable; men were blinded by his seeming moderation; and for full
+seven years he pursued his insidious way, gradually weaning the people
+from their ancient customs, and taking advantage of every imprudence and
+thoughtless concession on their part to ground on it a claim to
+increased authority.
+
+It was the glove of silk he had thus far extended to them. Within it lay
+concealed the hand of iron. The grasp of the iron hand was made when,
+during an audience, the envoy of the republic, through treason or
+thoughtlessness, addressed him by the name of sovereign (_Gosudar_,
+"liege lord," instead of _Gospodin_, "master," the usual title).
+
+Ivan, taking advantage of this, at once claimed all the absolute rights
+which custom had attached to that title. He demanded that the republic
+should take an oath to him as its judge and legislator, receive his
+boyars as their rulers, and yield to them the ancient palace of
+Yaroslaf, the sacred temple of their liberties, in which for more than
+five centuries their assemblies had been held.
+
+This demand roused the Novgorodians to their danger. They saw how
+blindly they had yielded to tyranny. A transport of indignation inspired
+them. For the last time the great bell of liberty sent forth its peal of
+alarm. Gathering tumultuously at the palace from which they were
+threatened with expulsion, they vigorously resolved,--
+
+"Ivan is in fact our lord, but he shall never be our sovereign; the
+tribunal of his deputies may sit at Goroditch, but never at Novgorod:
+Novgorod is, and always shall be, its own judge."
+
+In their rage they murdered several of the nobles whom they suspected of
+being friends of the tyrant. The envoy who had uttered the imprudent
+word was torn to pieces by their furious hands. They ended by again
+invoking the aid of Lithuania.
+
+On hearing of this outbreak the despot feigned surprise. Groans broke
+from his lips, as if he felt that he had been basely used. His
+complaints were loud, and the calling in of a foreign power was brought
+against Novgorod as a frightful aggravation of its crime. Under cover of
+these groans and complaints an army was gathered to which all the
+provinces of the empire were forced to send contingents.
+
+These warlike preparations alarmed the citizens. All Russia seemed
+arrayed against them, and they tremblingly asked for conditions of peace
+in accordance with their ancient honor. "I will reign at Novgorod as I
+do at Moscow," replied the imperious despot. "I must have domains on
+your territory. You must give up your Posadnick, and the bell which
+summons you to the national council." Yet this threat of enslavement was
+craftily coupled with a promise to respect their liberty.
+
+This declaration, the most terrible that free citizens could have heard,
+threw them into a state of violent agitation. Now in defiant fury they
+seized their arms, now in helpless despondency let them fall. For a
+whole month their crafty adversary permitted them to exhibit their rage,
+not caring to use the great army with which he had encircled the city
+when assured that the terror of his presence would soon bring him
+victory.
+
+They yielded: they could do nothing but yield. No blood was shed. Ivan
+had gained his end, and was not given to useless cruelty. Marfa and
+seven of the principal citizens were sent prisoners to Moscow and their
+property was confiscated. No others were molested. But on the 15th of
+January, 1478, the national assemblies ceased, and the citizens took the
+oath of subjection. The great republic, which had existed from
+prehistoric times, was at an end, and despotism ruled supreme.
+
+On the 18th the boyars of Novgorod entered the service of Ivan, and the
+possessions of the clergy were added to the domain of the prince, giving
+him as vassals three hundred thousand boyar-followers, on whom he
+depended to hold Novgorod in a state of submission. A great part of the
+territories belonging to the city became the victor's prize, and it is
+said that, as a share of his spoil, he sent to Moscow three hundred
+cart-loads of gold, silver, and precious stones, besides vast quantities
+of furs, cloths, and other goods of value.
+
+Pskov, another of the Russian republics, had been already subdued. In
+1479, Viatka, a colony of Novgorod, was reduced to like slavery. The end
+had come. Republicanism in Russia was extinguished, and gradually the
+republican population was removed to the soil of Moscow and replaced by
+Muscovites, born to the yoke.
+
+The liberties of Novgorod were gone. It had been robbed of its wealth.
+Its commerce remained, which in time would have restored its prosperity.
+But this too Ivan destroyed, not intentionally, but effectually. A burst
+of despotic anger completed the work of ruin. The tyrant, having been
+insulted by a Hanseatic city, ordered all the merchants of the Hansa
+then in Novgorod to be put in chains and their property confiscated. As
+a result, that confidence under which alone commerce can flourish
+vanished, the North sought new channels for its trade, and Novgorod the
+Great, once peopled by four hundred thousand souls, declined until only
+an insignificant borough marks the spot where once it stood.
+
+It is an interesting fact that this final blow to Russian republicanism
+was dealt in 1492, the very year in which Columbus discovered a new
+world beyond the seas, within which the greatest republic the world has
+ever known was destined to arise.
+
+
+
+
+_IVAN THE TERRIBLE._
+
+
+In seeking examples of the excesses to which absolute power may lead, we
+usually name the wicked emperors of Rome, among whom Nero stands most
+notorious as a monster of cruelty. Modern history has but one Nero in
+its long lines of kings and emperors, and him we find in Ivan IV. of
+Russia, surnamed the Terrible.
+
+This cruel czar succeeded to the throne when but three years of age. In
+his early years he lived in a state of terror, being insulted and
+despised by the powerful nobles who controlled the power of the throne.
+At fourteen years of age his enemies were driven out and his kinsmen
+came into power. They, caring only for blood and plunder, prompted the
+boy to cruelty, teaching him to rob, to torture, to massacre. They
+applauded him when he amused himself by tormenting animals; and when,
+riding furiously through the streets of Moscow, he dashed all before him
+to the ground and trampled women and children under his horses' feet,
+they praised him for spirit and energy.
+
+This was an education fitted to make a Nero. But, happily for Russia,
+for thirteen years the tiger was chained. Ivan was seventeen years of
+age when a frightful conflagration which broke out in Moscow gave rise
+to a revolt against the Glinski, his wicked kinsmen. They were torn to
+pieces by the furious multitude, while terror rent his youthful soul.
+Amid the horror of flames, cries of vengeance, and groans of the dying,
+a monk appeared before the trembling boy, and with menacing looks and
+upraised hand bade him shrink from the wrath of Heaven, which his
+cruelty had aroused.
+
+Certain appearances which appeared supernatural aided the effect of
+these words, the nature of Ivan seemed changed as by a miracle, dread of
+Heaven's vengeance controlled his nature, and he yielded himself to the
+influence of the wise and good. Pious priests and prudent boyars became
+his advisers, Anastasia, his young and virtuous bride, gained an
+influence over him, and Russia enjoyed justice and felicity.
+
+During the succeeding thirteen years the country was ably and wisely
+governed, order was everywhere established, the army was strengthened,
+fortresses were built, enemies were defeated, the morals of the clergy
+were improved, a new code of laws was formed, arts were introduced from
+Europe, a printing-office was opened, the city of Archangel was built,
+and the north of the empire was thrown open to commerce.
+
+All this was the work of Adashef, Ivan's wise prime minister, aided by
+the influence of the noble-hearted Anastasia. In 1560, at the end of
+this period of mild and able administration, a sudden change took place
+and the tiger was set free. Anastasia died. A disease seized Ivan which
+seemed to affect his brain. The remainder of his life was marked by
+paroxysms of frightful barbarity.
+
+A new terror seized him, that of a vast conspiracy of the nobles
+against his power, and for safety he retired to Alexandrovsky, a
+fortress in the midst of a gloomy forest. Here he assumed the monkish
+dress with three hundred of his minions, abandoning to the boyars the
+government of the empire, but keeping the military power in his own
+hands.
+
+On all sides Russia now suffered from its enemies. Moscow, with several
+hundred thousand Muscovites, was burned by the Tartars in 1571. Disaster
+followed disaster, which Ivan was too cowardly and weak to avert.
+Trusting to incompetent generals abroad, he surrounded himself at home
+with a guard of six thousand chosen men, who were hired to play the part
+of spies and assassins. They carried as emblems of office a dog's head
+and a broom, the first to indicate that they worried the enemies of the
+czar, the second that they swept them from the face of the earth. They
+were chosen from the lowest class of the people, and to them was given
+the property of their victims, that they might murder without mercy.
+
+The excesses of Ivan are almost too horrible to tell. He began by
+putting to death several great boyars of the family of Rurik, while
+their wives and children were driven naked into the forests, where they
+died under the scourge. Novgorod had been ruined by his grandfather. He
+marched against it, in a freak of madness, gathered a throng of the
+helpless people within a great enclosure, and butchered them with his
+own hand. When worn out with these labors of death, he turned on them
+his guard, his slaves, and his dogs, while for a month afterwards
+hundreds of them were flung daily into the waters of the river, through
+the broken ice. What little vitality Ivan III. had left in the
+republican city was stamped out under the feet of this insensate brute.
+
+Tver and Pskov, two others of the free cities of the empire, suffered
+from his frightful presence. Then returning to Moscow, he filled the
+public square with red-hot brasiers, great brass caldrons, and eighty
+gibbets, and here five hundred of the leading nobles were slain by his
+orders, after being subjected to terrible tortures.
+
+Women were treated as barbarously as men. Ivan, with a cruelty never
+before matched, ordered many of them to be hanged at their own doors,
+and forced the husbands to go in and out under the swinging and
+festering corpses of those they had loved and cherished. In other cases
+husbands or children were fastened, dead, in their seats at table, and
+the family forced to sit at meals, for days, opposite these terrifying
+objects.
+
+Seeking daily for new conceits of cruelty, he forced one lord to kill
+his father and another his brother, while it was his delight to let
+loose his dogs and bears upon the people in the public square, the
+animals being left to devour the mutilated bodies of those they killed.
+Eight hundred women were drowned in one frightful mass, and their
+relatives were forced under torture to point out where their wealth lay
+hidden.
+
+It is said that sixty thousand people were slain by Ivan's orders in
+Novgorod alone; how many perished in the whole realm history does not
+relate. His only warlike campaign was against the Livonians. These he
+failed to conquer, but held their resistance as a rebellion, and ordered
+his prisoners to be thrown into boiling caldrons, spitted on lances, or
+roasted at fires which he stirred up with his own hands.
+
+This monster of iniquity married in all seven wives. He sought for an
+eighth from the court of Queen Elizabeth of England, and the daughter of
+the Earl of Huntington was offered him as a victim,--a willing one, it
+seems, influenced by the glamour which power exerts over the mind; but
+before the match was concluded the intended bride took fright, and
+begged to be spared the terrible honor of wedding the Russian czar.
+
+Yet all the excesses of Ivan did not turn the people against him. He
+assumed the manner of one inspired, claiming divine powers, and all the
+injuries and degradation which he inflicted upon the people were
+accepted not only with resignation but with adoration. The Russians of
+that age of ignorance seem to have looked upon God and the czar as one,
+and submitted to blows, wounds, and insults with a blind servility to
+which only abject superstition could have led.
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH AND TOWER OF IVAN THE GREAT.]
+
+The end came at last, in a final freak of madness. An humble
+supplication, coming from the most faithful of his subjects, was made to
+him; but in his distorted brain it indicated a new conspiracy of the
+boyars, of which his eldest and ablest son was to be the leader. In a
+transport of insane rage the frenzied emperor raised his iron-bound
+staff and struck to the earth with a mortal blow this hope of his race.
+
+This was his last excess. Regret for his hasty act, though not remorse
+for his murders, assailed him, and he soon after died, after twenty-six
+years of insane cruelties, ordering new executions almost with his
+latest breath.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CONQUEST OF SIBERIA._
+
+
+In the year 1558 a family of wealthy merchants, Stroganof by name, began
+to barter with the Tartar tribes dwelling east of the Ural Mountains.
+Ivan IV. had granted to this family the desert districts of the Kama,
+with great privileges in trade, and the power to levy troops and build
+forts--at their own expense--as a security against the robbers who
+crossed the Urals to prey upon their settled neighbors to the west. In
+return the Stroganofs were privileged to follow their example in a more
+legal manner, by the brigandage of trade between civilization and
+barbarism.
+
+These robbers came from the region now known as Siberia, which extends
+to-day through thousands of miles of width, from the Urals to the
+Pacific. Before this time we know little about this great expanse of
+land. It seems to have been peopled by a succession of races, immigrants
+from the south, each new wave of people driving the older tribes deeper
+into the frozen regions of the north. Early in the Christian era there
+came hither a people destitute of iron, but expert in the working of
+bronze, silver, and gold. They had wide regions of irrigated fields, and
+a higher civilization than that of those who in time took their place.
+
+People of Turkish origin succeeded these tribes about the eleventh
+century. They brought with them weapons of iron and made fine pottery.
+In the thirteenth century, when the great Mongol outbreak took place
+under Genghis Khan, the Turkish kingdom in Siberia was destroyed and
+Tartars took their place. Civilization went decidedly down hill. Such
+was the state of affairs when Russia began to turn eyes of longing
+towards Siberia.
+
+The busy traders of Novgorod had made their way into Siberia as early as
+the eleventh century. But this republic fell, and the trade came to an
+end. In 1555, Khan Ediger, who had made himself a kingdom in Siberia,
+and whose people had crossed swords with the Russians beyond the Urals,
+sent envoys to Moscow, who consented to pay to Russia a yearly tribute
+of a thousand sables, thus acknowledging Russian supremacy.
+
+This tribute showed that there were riches beyond the mountains. The
+Stroganofs made their way to the barrier of the hills, and it was not
+long before the trader was followed by the soldier. The invasion of
+Siberia was due to an event which for the time threatened the total
+overthrow of the Russian government. A Cossack brigand, Stepan Rozni by
+name, had long defied the forces of the czar, and gradually gained in
+strength until he had an army of three hundred thousand men under his
+command. If he had been a soldier of ability he might have made himself
+lord of the empire. Being a brigand in grain, he was soon overturned and
+his forces dispersed.
+
+Among his followers was one Yermak, a chief of the Cossacks of the Don,
+whom the czar sentenced to death for his love of plunder, but afterwards
+pardoned. Yermak and his followers soon found the rule of Moscow too
+stringent for their ideas of personal liberty, and he led a Cossack band
+to the Stroganof settlements in Perm.
+
+Tradition tells us that the Stroganof of that date did not relish the
+presence of his unruly guests, with their free ideas of property rights,
+and suggested to Yermak that Siberia offered a promising field for a
+ready sword. He would supply him with food and arms if he saw fit to
+lead an expedition thither.
+
+The suggestion accorded well with Yermak's humor. He at once began to
+enlist volunteers for the enterprise, adding to his own Cossack band a
+reinforcement of Russians and Tartars and of German and Polish prisoners
+of war, until he had sixteen hundred and thirty-six men under his
+command. With these he crossed the mountains in 1580, and terrified the
+natives to submission with his fire-arms, a form of weapon new to them.
+Making their way down the Tura and Taghil Rivers, the adventurers
+crossed the immense untrodden forests of Tobol, and Kutchum, the Tartar
+khan, was assailed in his capital town of Ister, near where Tobolsk now
+stands.
+
+Many battles with the Tartars were fought, Ister was taken, the khan
+fled to the steppes, and his cousin was made prisoner by the
+adventurers. Yermak now, having added by his valor a great domain to the
+Russian empire, purchased the favor of Ivan IV. by the present of this
+new kingdom. He made his way to the Irtish and Obi, opened trade with
+the rich khanate of Bokhara, south of the desert, and in various ways
+sought to consolidate the conquest he had made. But misfortune came to
+the conqueror. One day, being surprised by the Tartars when unprepared,
+he leaped into the Irtish in full armor and tried to swim its rapid
+current. The armor he wore had been sent him by the czar, and had served
+him well in war. It proved too heavy for his powers of swimming, bore
+him beneath the hungry waters, and brought the career of the victorious
+brigand to an end. After his death his dismayed followers fled from
+Siberia, yielding it to Tartar hands again.
+
+Yermak--in his way a rival of Cortez and Pizarro--gained by his conquest
+the highest fame among the Russian people. They exalted him to the level
+of a hero, and their church has raised him to the rank of a saint, at
+whose tomb miracles are performed. As regards the Russian saints, it may
+here be remarked that they have been constructed, as a rule, from very
+unsanctified timber, as may be seen from the examples we have heretofore
+given. Not only the people and the priests but the poets have paid their
+tribute to Yermak's fame, epic poems having been written about his
+exploits and his deeds made familiar in popular song.
+
+Though the Cossacks withdrew after Yermak's death, others soon succeeded
+them. The furs of Siberia formed a rich prize whose allurement could not
+be ignored, and new bands of hunters and adventurers poured into the
+country, sustained by regular troops from Moscow. The advance was made
+through the northern districts to avoid the denser populations of the
+south. New detachments of troops were sent, who built forts and settled
+laborers around them, with the duty of supplying the garrisons with
+food, powder, and arms. By 1650 the Amur was reached and followed to the
+Pacific Ocean.
+
+It was a brief period in which to conquer a country of such vast extent.
+But no organized resistance was met, and the land lay almost at the
+mercy of the invaders. There was vigorous opposition by the tribes, but
+they were soon subdued. The only effective resistance they met was that
+of the Chinese, who obliged the Cossacks to quit the Amur, which river
+they claimed. In 1855 the advance here began again, and the whole course
+of the river was occupied, with much territory to its south. Siberia,
+thus conquered by arms, is being made secure for Russia by a
+trans-continental railroad and hosts of new settlers, and promises in
+the future to become a land of the greatest prosperity and wealth.
+
+[Illustration: KIAKHTA, SIBERIA.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE MACBETH OF RUSSIA._
+
+
+On the 15th of May, 1591, five boys were playing in the court-yard of
+the Russian palace at Uglitch. With them were the governess and nurse of
+the principal child--a boy ten years of age--and a servant-woman. The
+child had a knife in his hand, with which he was amusing himself by
+thrusting it into the ground or cutting a piece of wood.
+
+Unluckily, the attention of the women for a brief interval was drawn
+aside. When the nurse looked at her charge again, to her horror she
+found him writhing on the ground, bathed in blood which poured from a
+large wound in his throat.
+
+The shrieks of the nurse quickly drew others to the spot, and in a
+moment there was a terrible uproar, for the dying boy was no less a
+person than Dmitri, son of Ivan the Terrible, brother of Feodor, the
+reigning czar, and heir to the crown of Russia. The tocsin was sounded,
+and the populace thronged into the court-yard, thinking that the palace
+was on fire. On learning what had actually happened they burst into
+uncontrollable fury. The child had not killed himself, but had been
+murdered, they said, and a victim for their rage was sought.
+
+In a moment the governess was hurled bleeding and half alive to the
+ground, and one of her slaves, who came to her aid, was killed. The
+keeper of the palace was accused of the crime, and, though he fled and
+barred himself within a house, the infuriated mob broke through the
+doors and killed him and his son. The body of the child was carried into
+a neighboring church, and here the son of the governess, against whom
+suspicion had been directed, was murdered before it under his mother's
+eyes. Fresh victims to the wrath of the populace were sought, and the
+lives of the governess and some others were with difficulty saved.
+
+As for the child who had killed himself or had been killed, alarming
+stories had recently been set afloat. He was said to be the image of his
+terrible father, and to manifest an unnatural delight in blood and the
+sight of pain, his favorite amusement being to torture and kill animals.
+But it is doubtful if any of this was true, for there was then one in
+power who had a reason for arousing popular prejudice against the boy.
+
+That this may be better understood we must go back. Ivan had killed his
+ablest son, as told in a previous story, and Feodor, the present czar,
+was a feeble, timid, sickly incapable, who was a mere tool in the hands
+of his ambitious minister, Boris Godunof. Boris craved the throne.
+Between him and this lofty goal lay only the feeble Feodor and the child
+Dmitri, the sole direct survivors of the dynasty of Rurik. With their
+death without children that great line would be extinguished.
+
+The story of Boris reminds us in several particulars of that of the
+Scotch usurper Macbeth. His future career had been predicted, in the
+dead of night, by astrologers, who said, "You shall yet wear the
+crown." Then they became silent, as if seeing horrors which they dared
+not reveal. Boris insisted on knowing more, and was told that he should
+reign, but only for seven years. In joy he exclaimed, "No matter, though
+it be for only seven days, so that I reign!"
+
+This ambitious lord, who ruled already if he did not reign, had
+therefore a purpose in exciting prejudice against and distrust of
+Dmitri, the only heir to the crown, and in taking steps for his removal.
+Feodor dead, the throne would fall like ripe fruit into his own hands.
+
+Yet, whether guilty of the murder or not, he took active steps to clear
+himself of the dark suspicion of guilt. An inquest was held, and the
+verdict rendered that the boy had killed himself by accident. At once
+the regent proceeded to punish those who had taken part in the outbreak
+at Uglitch. The czaritza, mother of Dmitri, who had first incited the
+mob, was forced to take the veil. Her brothers, who had declared the act
+one of murder, were sent to remote prisons. Uglitch was treated with
+frightful severity. More than two hundred of its inhabitants were put to
+death. Others were maimed and thrown into dungeons. All the rest, except
+those who had fled, were exiled to Siberia, and with them was banished
+the very church-bell which had called them out by its tocsin peal. A
+town of thirty thousand inhabitants was depopulated that, as people
+said, every evidence of the guilt of Boris Godunof might be destroyed.
+
+This dreadful violence did Boris more harm than good. Macbeth stabbed
+the sleeping grooms to hide his guilt. Boris destroyed a city. But he
+only caused the people to look on him as an assassin and to doubt the
+motives of even his noblest acts.
+
+A fierce fire broke out that left much of Moscow in ruin. Boris rebuilt
+whole streets and distributed money freely among the people. But even
+those who received this aid said that he had set fire to the city
+himself that he might win applause with his money. A Tartar army invaded
+the empire and appeared at the gates of Moscow. All were in terror but
+Boris, who hastily built redoubts, recruited soldiers, and inspired all
+with his own courage. The Tartars were defeated, and hardly a third of
+them reached home again. Yet all the return the able regent received was
+the popular saying that he had called in the Tartars in order to make
+the people forget the death of Dmitri.
+
+A child was born to Feodor,--a girl. The enemies of the regent instantly
+declared that a boy had been born and that he had substituted for it a
+girl. It died in a few days, and then it was said that he had poisoned
+it.
+
+Yet Boris went on, disdaining his enemies, winning power as he went. He
+gained the favor of the clergy by giving Russia a patriarch of its own.
+The nobles who opposed him were banished or crushed. He made the
+peasants slaves of the land, and thus won over the petty lords. Cities
+were built, fortresses erected, the enemies of Russia defeated; Siberia
+was brought under firm control, and the whole nation made to see that
+it had never been ruled by abler hands.
+
+Boris in all this was strongly paving his way to the throne. In 1598 the
+weak Feodor died. He left no sons, and with him, its fifty-second
+sovereign, the dynasty of Rurik the Varangian came to an end. It had
+existed for more than seven centuries. Branches of the house of Rurik
+remained, yet no member of it dared aspire to that throne which the
+tyrant Ivan had made odious.
+
+A new ruler had to be chosen by the voice of those in power, and Boris
+stood supreme among the aspirants. The chronicles tell us, with striking
+brevity, "The election begins; the people look up to the nobles, the
+nobles to the grandees, the grandees to the patriarch; he speaks, he
+names Boris; and instantaneously, and as one man, all re-echo that
+formidable name."
+
+And now Godunof played an amusing game. He held the reins of power so
+firmly that he could safely enact a transparent farce. He refused the
+sceptre. The grandees and the people begged him to accept it, and he
+took refuge from their solicitations in a monastery. This comedy, which
+even Caesar had not long played, Boris kept up for over a month. Yet from
+his cell he moved Russia at his will.
+
+In truth, the more he seemed to withdraw the more eager became all to
+make him accept. Priests, nobles, people, besieged him with their
+supplications. He refused, and again refused, and for six weeks kept all
+Russia in suspense. Not until he saw before him the highest grandees and
+clergy of the realm on their knees, tears in their eyes, in their hands
+the relics of the saints and the image of the Redeemer, did he yield
+what seemed a reluctant assent, and come forth from his cell to accept
+that throne which was the chief object of his desires.
+
+But Boris on the throne still resembled Macbeth. The memory of his
+crimes pursued him, and he sought to rule by fear instead of love. He
+endeavored, indeed, to win the people by shows and prodigality, but the
+powerful he ruled with a heavy hand, destroying all whom he had reason
+to fear, threatening the extinction of many great families by forbidding
+their members to marry, seizing the wealth of those he had ruined. The
+family of the Romanofs, allied to the line of Rurik, and soon to become
+pre-eminent in Russia, he pursued with rancor, its chief being obliged
+to turn monk to escape the axe. As monk he in time rose to the headship
+of the church.
+
+The peasantry, who had before possessed liberty of movement, were by him
+bound as serfs to the soil. Thousands of them fled, and an insupportable
+inquisition was established, as hateful to the landowners as to the
+serfs. All this was made worse by famine and pestilence, which ravaged
+Russia for three years. And in the midst of this disaster the ghost of
+the slain Dmitri rose to plague his murderer. In other words, one who
+claimed to be the slain prince appeared, and avenged the murdered child,
+his story forming one of the most interesting tales in the history of
+Russia. It is this which we have now to tell.
+
+About midsummer of the year 1603 Adam Wiszniowiecki, a Polish prince,
+angry at some act of negligence in a young man whom he had lately
+employed, gave him a box on the ear and called him by an insulting name.
+
+"If you knew who I am, prince," said the indignant youth, "you would not
+strike me nor call me by such a name."
+
+"Knew who you are! Why, who are you?"
+
+"I am Dmitri, son of Ivan IV., and the rightful czar of Russia."
+
+Surprised by this extraordinary statement, the prince questioned him,
+and was told a plausible story by the young man. He had escaped the
+murderer, he said, the boy who died being the son of a serf, who
+resembled and had been substituted for him by his physician Simon, who
+knew what Boris designed. The physician had fled with him from Uglitch
+and put him in the hands of a loyal gentleman, who for safety had
+consigned him to a monastery.
+
+The physician and gentleman were both dead, but the young man showed the
+prince a Russian seal which bore Dmitri's arms and name, and a gold
+cross adorned with jewels of great value, given him, he said, by his
+princely godfather. He was about the age which Dmitri would have
+reached, and, as a Russian servant who had seen the child said, had
+warts and other marks like those of the true Dmitri. He possessed also a
+persuasiveness of manner which soon won over the Polish prince.
+
+The pretender was accepted as an illustrious guest by Prince
+Wiszniowiecki, given clothes, horses, carriages, and suitable retinue,
+and presented to other Polish dignitaries. Dmitri, as he was thenceforth
+known, bore well the honors now showered upon him. He was at ease among
+the noblest; gracious, affable, but always dignified; and all said that
+he had the deportment of a prince.
+
+He spoke Polish as well as Russian, was thoroughly versed in Russian
+history and genealogy, and was, moreover, an accomplished horseman,
+versed in field sports, and of striking vigor and agility, qualities
+highly esteemed by the Polish nobles.
+
+The story of this event quickly reached Russia, and made its way with
+surprising rapidity through all the provinces. The czarevitch Dmitri had
+not been murdered, after all! He was alive in Poland, and was about to
+call the usurper to a terrible reckoning. The whole nation was astir
+with the story, and various accounts of his having been seen in Russia
+and of having played a brave part in the military expeditions of the
+Cossacks were set afloat.
+
+Boris soon heard of this claimant of the throne. He also received the
+disturbing news that a monk was among the Cossacks of the Don urging
+them to take up arms for the czarevitch who would soon be among them.
+His first movement was the injudicious one of trying to bribe
+Wiszniowiecki to give up the impostor to him,--the result being to
+confirm the belief that he was in truth the prince he claimed to be.
+
+The events that followed are too numerous to be given in detail, and it
+must suffice here to say that on October 31, 1604, Dmitri entered
+Russian territory at the head of a small Polish army, of less than five
+thousand in all. This was a trifling force with which to invade an
+empire, but it grew rapidly as he advanced. Town after town submitted on
+his appearance, bringing to him, bound and gagged, the governors set
+over them by Boris. Dmitri at once set them free and treated them with
+politic humanity.
+
+The first town to offer resistance was Novgorod-Swerski, which Peter
+Basmanof, a general of Boris, had garrisoned with five hundred men.
+Basmanof was brave and obstinate, and for several weeks he held the
+force of Dmitri before this petty place, while Boris was making vigorous
+efforts to collect an army among his discontented people. On the last
+day of 1604 the two armies met, fifteen thousand against fifty thousand,
+and on a broad open plain that gave the weaker force no advantage of
+position.
+
+But Dmitri made up for weakness by soldierly spirit. At the head of some
+six hundred mail-clad Polish knights he vigorously charged the Russian
+right wing, hurled it back upon the centre, and soon had the whole army
+in disorder. The soldiers flung down their arms and fled, shouting, "The
+czarevitch! the czarevitch!"
+
+Yet in less than a month this important victory was followed by a
+defeat. Dmitri had been weakened by his Poles being called home. Boris
+gathered new forces, and on January 20, 1605, the armies met again, now
+seventy thousand Muscovites against less than quarter their number. Yet
+victory would have come to Dmitri again but for treachery in his army.
+He charged the enemy with the same fierceness as before, bore down all
+before him, routed the cavalry, tore a great gap in the line of the
+infantry, and would have swept the field had the main body of his army,
+consisting of eight thousand Zaporogues, come to his aid.
+
+At this vital moment this great body of cavalry, half the entire army,
+wheeled and quit the field,--bribed, it is said, by Boris. Such a
+defection, at such a moment, was fatal. The Russians rallied; the day
+was lost; nothing but flight remained. Dmitri fled, hotly pursued, and
+his horse suffering from a wound. He was saved by his devoted Cossack
+infantry, four thousand in number, who stood to their guns and faced the
+whole Muscovite army. They were killed to a man, but Dmitri
+escaped,--favored, as we are told, by some of the opposing leaders, who
+did not want to make Boris too powerful.
+
+All was not lost while Dmitri remained at liberty. Lost armies could be
+restored. He took refuge in Putivle, one of the towns which had
+pronounced in his favor, and while his enemies, who proved half-hearted
+in the cause of Boris, wasted their time in besieging a small fortress,
+new adherents flocked to his banner. Boris was furious against his
+generals, but his fury caused them to hate instead of to serve him. He
+tried to get rid of Dmitri by poison, but his agents were discovered and
+punished, and the attempt helped his rival more than a victory would
+have done.
+
+Dmitri wrote to Boris, declaring that Heaven had protected him against
+this base attempt, and ironically promising to extend mercy towards him.
+"Descend from the throne you have usurped, and seek in the solitude of
+the cloister to reconcile yourself with Heaven. In that case I will
+forget your crimes, and even assure you of my sovereign protection."
+
+All this was bitter to the Russian Macbeth. The princely blood which he
+had shed to gain the throne seemed to redden the air about him. The
+ghost of his slain victim haunted him. His power, indeed, seemed as
+great as ever. He was an autocrat still, the master of a splendid court,
+the ruler over a vast empire. Yet he knew that they who came with
+reverence and adulation into his presence hated him in their hearts, and
+anguish must have smitten the usurper to the soul.
+
+His sudden death seemed to indicate this. On the 13th of April, 1605,
+after dining in state with some distinguished foreigners, illness
+suddenly seized him, blood burst from his mouth, nose, and ears, and
+within two hours he was dead. He had reigned six years,--nearly the full
+term predicted by the soothsayers.
+
+The story of Dmitri is a long one still, but must be dealt with here
+with the greatest brevity. Feodor, the son of Boris, was proclaimed czar
+by the boyars of the court. The oath of allegiance was taken by the
+whole city; all seemed to favor him; yet within six weeks this boyish
+czar was deposed and executed without a sword being drawn in his
+defence.
+
+Basmanof, the leading general of Boris, had turned to the cause of
+Dmitri, and the army seconded him. The people of Moscow declared in
+favor of the pretender, there were a few executions and banishments, and
+on the 20th of June the new czar entered Moscow in great pomp, amid the
+acclamations of an immense multitude, who thronged the streets, the
+windows, and the house-tops; and the young man who, less than two years
+before, had had his ears boxed by a Polish prince, was now proclaimed
+emperor and autocrat of the mighty Russian realm.
+
+It was a short reign to which the false Dmitri--for there seems to be no
+doubt of the death of the true Dmitri--had come. Within less than a year
+Moscow was in rebellion, he was slain, and the throne was vacant. And
+this result was largely due to his generous and kindly spirit, largely
+to his trusting nature and disregard of Russian opinion.
+
+No man could have been more unlike the tyrant Ivan, his reputed father.
+Dmitri proved kind and generous to all, even bestowing honors upon
+members of the family of Godunof. He remitted heavy taxes, punished
+unjust judges, paid the debts contracted by Ivan, passed laws in the
+interest of the serfs, and held himself ready to receive the petitions
+and redress the grievances of the humblest of his subjects. His
+knowledge of state affairs was remarkable for one of his age, and Russia
+had never had an abler, nobler-minded, and more kindly-hearted czar.
+
+But Dmitri in discretion was still a boy, and made trouble where an
+older head would have mended it. He offended the boyars of his council
+by laughing at their ignorance.
+
+"Go and travel," he said; "observe the ways of civilized nations, for
+you are no better than savages."
+
+The advice was good, but not wise. He offended the Russian demand for
+decorum in a czar by riding through the streets on a furious stallion,
+like a Cossack of the Don. In religion he was lax, favoring secretly the
+Latin Church. He chose Poles instead of Russians for his secretaries.
+And he excited general disgust by the announcement that he was about to
+marry a Polish woman, heretical to the Russian faith. The people were
+still more incensed by the conduct of Marina, this foreign bride, both
+before and after the wedding, she giving continual offence by her
+insistence on Polish customs.
+
+While thus offending the prejudices and superstitions of his people,
+Dmitri prepared for his downfall by his trustfulness and clemency. He
+dismissed the spies with whom former czars had surrounded themselves,
+and laid himself freely open to treachery. The result of his acts and
+his openness was a conspiracy, which was fortunately discovered.
+Shuiski, its leader, was condemned to be executed. Yet as he knelt with
+the axe lifted above him, he was respited and banished to Siberia; and
+on his way thither a courier overtook him, bearing a pardon for him and
+his banished brothers. His rank was restored, and he was again made a
+councillor of the empire.
+
+Clemency like this was praiseworthy, but it proved fatal. Like Caesar
+before him, Dmitri was over-clement and over-confident, and with the
+same result. Yet his answer to those who urged him to punish the
+conspirator was a noble one, and his trustfulness worth far more than a
+security due to cruelty and suspicion.
+
+"No," he said, "I have sworn not to shed Christian blood, and I will
+keep my oath. There are two ways of governing an empire,--tyranny and
+generosity. I choose the latter. I will not be a tyrant. I will not
+spare money; I will scatter it on all hands."
+
+Only for the offence which he gave his people by disregarding their
+prejudices, Dmitri might have long and ably reigned. His confidence
+opened the way to a new conspiracy, of which Shuiski was again at the
+head. Reports were spread through the city that Dmitri was a heretic and
+an impostor, and that he had formed a plot to massacre the Muscovites by
+the aid of the Poles whom he had introduced into the city.
+
+As a result of the insidious methods of the conspirators, the whole city
+broke out in rebellion, and at daybreak on the 29th of May, 1606, a body
+of boyars gathered in the great square in full armor, and, followed by a
+multitude of townsmen, advanced on the Kremlin, whose gates were thrown
+open by traitors within.
+
+Dmitri, who had only fifty guards in the palace, was aroused by the din
+of bells and the uproar in the streets. An armed multitude filled the
+outer court, shouting, "Death to the impostor!"
+
+Soon conspirators appeared in the palace, where the czar, snatching a
+sword from one of the guards, and attended by Basmanof, attacked them,
+crying out, "I am not a Boris for you!"
+
+He killed several with his own hands, but Basmanof was slain before
+him, and he and the guards were driven back from chamber to chamber,
+until the guards, finding that the czar had disappeared, laid down their
+arms.
+
+Dmitri, seeing that resistance was hopeless, had sought a distant room,
+and here had leaped or been thrown from a window to the ground. The
+height was thirty feet, his leg was broken by the fall, and he fainted
+with the pain.
+
+His last hope of life was gone. Some faithful soldiers who found him
+sought to defend him against the mob who soon appeared, but their
+resistance was of no avail. Dmitri was seized, his royal garments were
+torn off, and the caftan of a pastry-cook was placed upon him. Thus
+dressed, he was carried into a room of the palace for the mockery of a
+trial.
+
+"Bastard dog," cried one of the Russians, "tell us who you are and
+whence you came."
+
+"You all know I am your czar," replied Dmitri, bravely, "the legitimate
+son of Ivan Vassilievitch. If you desire my death, give me time at least
+to collect my senses."
+
+At this a Russian gentleman named Valnief shouted out,--
+
+"What is the use of so much talk with the heretic dog? This is the way I
+confess this Polish fifer." And he put an end to the agony of Dmitri by
+shooting him through the breast.
+
+In an instant the mob rushed on the lifeless body, slashing it with axes
+and swords. It was carried out, placed on a table, and a set of
+bagpipes set on the breast with the pipe in the mouth.
+
+"You played on us long enough; now play for us," cried the ribald
+insulter.
+
+Others lashed the corpse with their whips, crying, "Look at the czar,
+the hero of the Germans."
+
+For three days Dmitri's body lay exposed to the view of the populace,
+but it was so hacked and mangled that none could recognize in it the
+gallant young man who a few days before had worn the imperial robes and
+crown.
+
+On the third night a blue flame was seen playing over the table, and the
+guards, frightened by this natural result of putrefaction, hastened to
+bury the body outside the walls. But superstitious terrors followed the
+prodigy: it was whispered that Dmitri was a wizard who, by magic arts,
+had the power to come to life from the grave. To prevent this the body
+was dug up again and burned, and the ashes were collected, mixed with
+gunpowder, and rammed into a cannon, which was then dragged to the gate
+by which Dmitri had entered Moscow. Here the match was applied, and the
+ashes of the late czar were hurled down the road leading to Poland,
+whence he had come.
+
+Thus died a man who, impostor though he seems to have been, was perhaps
+the noblest and best of all the Russian czars, while the story of his
+rise and fall forms the most dramatic tale in all the annals of the
+empire over which for one short year he ruled.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ERA OF THE IMPOSTORS._
+
+
+We have told how the ashes of Dmitri were loaded into a cannon and fired
+from the gate of Moscow. They fell like seeds of war on the soil of
+Russia, and for years that unhappy land was torn by faction and harried
+by invasion. From those ashes new Dmitris seemed to spring, other
+impostors rose to claim the crown, and until all these shades were laid
+peace fled from the land.
+
+Vassili Shuiski, the leader in the insurrection against Dmitri, had
+himself proclaimed czar. He was destined to learn the truth of the
+saying, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." For hardly had the
+mob that murdered Dmitri dispersed before rumors arose that their victim
+was not dead. His body had been so mangled that none could recognize it,
+and the story was set afloat that it was one of his officers who had
+been killed, and that he had escaped. Four swift horses were missing
+from the stables of the palace, and these were at once connected with
+the assumed flight of the czar. Rumor was in the air, and even in Moscow
+doubts of Dmitri's death grew rife.
+
+Fuel soon fell on the flame. Three strangers in Russian dress, but
+speaking the language of Poland, crossed the Oka River, and gave the
+ferryman the high fee of six ducats, saying, "You have ferried the
+czar; when he comes back to Moscow with a Polish army he will not forget
+your service."
+
+At a German inn, a little farther on, the same party used similar
+language. This story spread like wildfire through Russia, and deeply
+alarmed the new czar. To put it down he sought to play on the religious
+feelings of the Russians, by making a saint of the original Dmitri. A
+body was produced, said to have been taken from the grave of the slain
+boy at Uglitch, but in a remarkable state of preservation, since it
+still displayed the fresh hue of life and held in its hand some
+strangely preserved nuts. Tales of miracles performed by the relics of
+the new saint were also spread, but with little avail, for the people
+were not very ready to believe the man who had stolen the throne.
+
+War broke out despite these manufactured miracles. Prince
+Shakhofskoi--the supposed leader of the party who had told the story at
+the Oka--was soon in the field with an army of Cossacks and peasants,
+and defeated the royal army. But the new Dmitri, in whose name he
+fought, did not appear. It seemed as if Shakhofskoi had not yet been
+able to find a suitable person to play the part.
+
+Russia, however, was not long without a pretender. During Dmitri's reign
+a young man had appeared among the Cossacks of the Volga, calling
+himself Peter Feodorovitch, and claiming to be the son of the former
+czar Feodor. This man now reappeared and presented himself to the rebel
+army as the representative of his uncle Dmitri. He was eagerly welcomed
+by Shakhofskoi, who badly needed some one whom he might offer to his
+men as a prince.
+
+And now we have to describe one of the strangest sieges in the annals of
+history. Shakhofskoi, finding himself threatened by a powerful army,
+took refuge in the fortified town of Toula. Here he was soon joined by
+Bolotnikof, a Polish general who had come to Russia with a commission
+bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri. In this stronghold they were
+besieged by an army of one hundred thousand men, led by the czar
+himself.
+
+Toula was strong. It was vigorously defended, the garrison fighting
+bravely for their lives. No progress was made with the siege, and
+Shuiski grew disconsolate, for he knew that to fail now would be ruin.
+
+From this state of anxiety he was relieved by a remarkable proposal,
+that of an obscure individual who promised to drown all the people of
+Toula and deliver the town into his hands. This extraordinary offer,
+made by a monk named Kravkof, was at first received with incredulous
+laughter, and it was some time before the czar and his council could be
+brought to listen to the words of an idle braggart, as they deemed the
+stranger. In the end the czar asked him to explain his plan.
+
+It proved to be the following. Toula lay in a narrow valley, down whose
+centre flowed the little river Oupa, passing through the town. Kravkof
+suggested that they should dam this stream below the town. "Do as I
+say," he remarked, "and if the whole town is not under water in a few
+hours, I will answer for the failure with my head."
+
+The project thus presented seemed feasible. Immediately all the millers
+in the army, men used to the kind of work required, were put under his
+orders, and the other soldiers were set to carrying sacks of earth to
+the place chosen for the dam. As this rose in height, the water backed
+up in the town. Soon many of the streets became canals, hundreds of
+houses, undermined by the water, were destroyed, and the promise of
+Kravkof seemed likely to be fulfilled.
+
+Yet the garrison, confined in what had become a walled-in lake, fought
+with desperate obstinacy. Water surrounded them, yet they waded to the
+walls and fought. Famine decimated them, yet they starved and fought. A
+terrible epidemic broke out in the water-soaked city, but the garrison
+fought on. Dreadful as were their surroundings, they held out with
+unflinching courage and intrepidity.
+
+The dam was the centre of the struggle. The besiegers sought to raise it
+still higher and deepen the water in the streets; the besieged did their
+best to break it down and relieve the city. It had grown to a great
+height with such rapidity that the superstitious people of Toula felt
+sure that magic had aided in its building and fancied that it might be
+destroyed by magic means. A monk declared that Shuiski had brought
+devils to his aid, but professed to be a proficient in the black art,
+and offered, for a hundred roubles, to fight the demons in their own
+element.
+
+Bolotnikof accepted his terms, and he stripped, plunged into the river,
+and disappeared. For a full hour nothing was seen of him, and every one
+gave him up for lost. But at the end of that time he rose to the surface
+of the water, his body covered with scratches. The story he had to tell
+was, to say the least, remarkable.
+
+"I have had a frightful conflict," he said, "with the twelve thousand
+devils Shuiski has at work upon his dam. I have settled six thousand of
+them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give
+in."
+
+Thus against men and devils alike, against water, famine, and
+pestilence, fought the brave men of Toula, holding out with
+extraordinary courage. Letters came to them in Dmitri's name, promising
+help, but it never came. At length, after months of this brave defence
+had elapsed, Shakhofskoi proposed that they should capitulate. The
+Cossacks of the garrison, furious at the suggestion, seized and thrust
+him into a dungeon. Not until every scrap of food had been eaten, horses
+and dogs devoured, even leather gnawed as food, did Bolotnikof and Peter
+the pretender offer to yield, and then only on condition that the
+soldiers should receive honorable treatment. If not, they would die with
+arms in their hands, and devour one another as food, rather than
+surrender. As for themselves, they asked for no pledges of safety.
+
+Shuiski accepted the terms, and the gates were opened. Bolotnikof
+advanced boldly to the czar and offered himself as a victim, presenting
+his sword with the edge laid against his neck.
+
+"I have kept the oath I swore to him who, rightly or wrongly, calls
+himself Dmitri," he said. "Deserted by him, I am in your power. Cut off
+my head if you will; or, if you will spare my life, I will serve you as
+I have served him."
+
+This appeal was wasted on Shuiski. He forgot the clemency which the czar
+Dmitri had formerly shown to him, sent Bolotnikof to Kargopol, and soon
+after ordered him to be drowned. Peter the pretender was hanged on the
+spot. Shakhofskoi alone was spared. They found him in chains, which he
+said had been placed on him because he counselled the obstinate rebels
+to submit. Shuiski set him free, and the first use he made of his
+liberty was to kindle the rebellion again.
+
+Thus ended this remarkable siege, one in some respects without parallel
+in the history of war. What followed must be briefly told. Though the
+siege of Toula ended with the hanging of one pretender to the throne,
+another was already in the field. The new Dmitri, in whose name the war
+was waged, had made his appearance during the siege. Some of the
+officers of the first Dmitri pretended to recognize him, but in reality
+he was a coarse, vulgar, ignorant knave, who had badly learned his
+lesson, and lacked all the native princeliness of his predecessor.
+
+Yet he had soon a large army at his back, and with it, on April 24,
+1608, he defeated the army of the czar with great slaughter. He might
+easily have taken Moscow, but instead of advancing on it he halted at
+the village of Tushino, twelve versts away, where he held his court for
+seventeen months.
+
+Meanwhile still another pretender appeared, who called himself Feodor,
+son of the czar Feodor. He presented himself to the Don Cossacks, who
+brought him in chains to Dmitri, by whom he was promptly put to death.
+Soon afterwards Marina, wife of the first Dmitri, who had been released,
+with her father, by Shuiski, was brought into the camp of the pretender.
+And here an interesting bit of comedy was played. Marina, rather than go
+back to meet ridicule in Poland, was ready to become the wife of this
+vulgar impostor, though she saw at once that he was not the man he
+claimed to be.
+
+She met him coldly at first, but at a second meeting she greeted him
+with a great show of tenderness before the whole army, being glad, it
+would appear, to regain her old position on any terms. The news that
+Marina had recognized the pretender brought over numbers to his side,
+and soon nearly all Russia had declared for him, the only cities holding
+out being Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk.
+
+The false Dmitri had now reached the summit of his fortunes. A rapid
+decline followed. One of his generals, who laid siege to the monastery
+of the Trinity, near Moscow, was repulsed. His partisans were defeated
+in other quarters. Soon the whole aspect of the war changed. A new enemy
+to Russia came into the field, Sigismund, King of Poland, who laid siege
+to the strong city of Smolensk, while the army of the czar, which
+marched to its relief, suffered an annihilating defeat.
+
+This result closed the reign of Shuiski. An insurrection broke out in
+Moscow, he was forced to become a monk, and in the end was delivered to
+Sigismund and died in prison. Thus was Dmitri avenged. The new
+condition of affairs proved as disastrous to the false Dmitri. His Poles
+deserted him, his power vanished, and he descended to the level of a
+mere Cossack robber. In December, 1610, murder ended his career.
+
+Smolensk fell after a siege of eighteen months, but at the last moment a
+powder magazine exploded and set fire to the city, and Sigismund became
+master only of a heap of ruins. The Poles in Moscow, attacked by the
+Russians, took possession of the Kremlin, burned down most of the city,
+and massacred a hundred thousand of the people. Anarchy was rampant
+everywhere. New chiefs appeared in all quarters. Each town declared for
+itself. The Swedes took possession of Novgorod. A third Dmitri appeared,
+and dwelt in state for a while, but was soon taken and hanged. The whole
+great empire was in a state of frightful confusion, and seemed as if it
+was about to fall to pieces.
+
+From this fate it was saved by one of the common people, a butcher of
+Nijni Novgorod, Kozma Minin by name. Brave, honest, patriotic, and
+sensible, this man aroused his fellow-citizens, who took up arms for the
+deliverance of their country. Other towns followed this example, an army
+was raised with Prince Pojarski at its head, and Minin, the patriotic
+butcher, seconded him in an administrative capacity, being hailed by the
+people as "the elect of the whole Russian empire."
+
+Driving the Poles before him, Pojarski entered Moscow, and in October,
+1612, became master of the Kremlin. The impostors all disappeared;
+Marina and her three-year-old son Ivan were captured, the child to be
+hanged and she to end her eventful life in prison; anarchy vanished, and
+peace returned to the realm.
+
+The end came in 1613, when a national council was convened to choose a
+new czar. Pojarski refused the crown, and Michael Romanof, a boy of
+sixteen, scion of one of the noblest families of Russia, and allied to
+the Ruriks by the female line, was elected czar. His descendants still
+hold the throne.
+
+[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION, MOSCOW, IN WHICH THE CZAR IS
+CROWNED.]
+
+
+
+
+_THE BOOKS OF ANCESTRY._
+
+
+The noble families of Russia, for the most part descendants of the
+Scandinavian adventurers who had come in with Rurik, were as proud in
+their way as the descendants of the vikings who came to England under
+William of Normandy. Their books of pedigree were kept with the most
+scrupulous care, and in these were set down not only the genealogies of
+the families, but every office that had been held by any ancestor, at
+court, in the army, or in the administration.
+
+With this there is no special fault to be found. It is as well,
+doubtless, to keep the pedigrees of men as it is to keep those of horses
+and dogs; though the animals, being ignorant of their records, are less
+likely to make them a matter of pride and presumption. In Russia the
+fact that certain men knew the names and standing of their ancestors led
+to the most absurd consequences. The books of ancestry were constantly
+appealed to for the support of foolish pretensions, and the nobles of
+Russia strutted like so many peacocks in their insensate pride of
+family.
+
+In no other country has the question of precedence been carried to such
+ridiculous lengths as it was in Russia in the days of the early
+Romanofs. If a nobleman were appointed to a post at court or a position
+in the army, he at once examined the books of ancestry to learn if the
+officials under whom he would serve had fewer ancestors on record than
+he. If such proved to be the case the office was refused, or accepted
+under protest, the government being, metaphorically, forced to fall on
+its knees to the haughtiness of its offended lordling.
+
+The folly of the nobles went even farther than this. The height of their
+genealogy counted for as much as its length. They would refuse to accept
+positions under persons whose ancestors were shown by the books to have
+been subordinate to theirs in the same positions. If it appeared that
+the John of five centuries before had been under the Peter of that
+period, the modern Peter was too proud to accept a similar position
+under the modern John. And so it went, until court life became a
+constant scene of bickering and discontent, and of murmurs at the most
+trifling slights and neglects. In short, it became necessary that an
+office of genealogy should be established at court, in which exact
+copies of the family trees and service registers of the noble families
+were kept, and the officers here employed found enough to keep them busy
+in settling the endless disputes of their lordly clients.
+
+In the reign of Theodore, the third czar of the Romanof dynasty, this
+ridiculous sentiment reached its climax, and it became almost impossible
+to appoint a wise man to office over a fool, if the fool's ancestors had
+happened to hold the same office over those of the man of wisdom. The
+fancy seemed to be held that folly and wisdom are handed down from
+father to son, a conceit which is often the very reverse of the truth.
+
+Theodore was a feeble youth, who reigned little more than five years,
+yet in that time he managed to bury this folly out of sight. Annoyed by
+the constant bickerings of courtiers and officials, he consulted with
+his able minister, Prince Vassili Galitzin, and hit on a means of
+ridding himself of the difficulty.
+
+Proclamation was made that all the noble families of the kingdom should
+deliver their service rolls into court by a fixed date, that they might
+be cleared of certain errors which had unavoidably crept into them. The
+order was obeyed, and a multitude of these precious documents were
+brought into the palace halls of the czar. The heads of the noble
+families and the higher clergy were now sent for, composing a proud
+assembly, before whom the patriarch, who had received his instructions,
+made an eloquent address. He ended by speaking of the claims to
+precedence in the following words:
+
+"They are a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive
+the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good
+grain; they have introduced, even into the hearts of families,
+dissension, confusion, and hatred. But the pontiff comprehends the grand
+design of his czar; God alone could have inspired it!"
+
+Though utterly ignorant of what that design was, the grandees felt
+compelled to express a warm approval of these words. At this Theodore,
+who pretended to be enraptured by their unanimous applause, suddenly
+rose, and, simulating a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, proclaimed the
+abolition of all their hereditary claims.
+
+"That the very recollection of them may be forever extinguished," he
+exclaimed, "let all the papers relative to these titles be instantly
+consumed."
+
+The fire was already prepared, and by his orders the precious papers
+were hurled into the flames before the anguished eyes of the nobles, who
+did not dare in that despotic court to express their true feelings, and
+strove to hide their dismay under hollow acclamations of assent.
+
+As what they deemed their most valuable possessions were thus converted
+to ashes before their eyes, the patriarch again rose, and declared an
+anathema against any one who should dare to oppose this order of the
+czar. An "Amen" that was like a groan came from the lips of the
+horrified nobles, and precedence went up in flames.
+
+The czar had no thought of effacing the noble families. New books were
+prepared, in which their ancestry was described. But the absurd claims
+which had caused such discord were forever abolished, and court life
+thereafter proved smoother and easier in consequence of the iconoclastic
+act of the czar Theodore.
+
+
+
+
+_BOYHOOD OF PETER THE GREAT._
+
+
+Peter the Great, grandson of the first emperor of the Romanof line, was
+a man of such extraordinary power of body and mind, such a remarkable
+combination of common sense, mental activity, advanced ideas, and
+determination to lift Russia to a high place among the nations, with
+cruelty, grossness, and infirmities of vice and passion, that his reign
+of forty-three years fills as large a place in Russian history as do the
+annals of all the preceding centuries, and the progress of Russia during
+this short period was greater than in any other epoch of three or four
+times its length.
+
+The character of the man showed in the boy, and while a mere child he
+began those steps of progress which were continued throughout his life.
+He had two brothers, both older than he, and sons of a different mother,
+so that the throne seemed far from his grasp. But Theodore, the oldest
+of the three, died after a brief reign, leaving no heirs to the throne.
+Ivan, the second son, was an imbecile, nearly blind, and subject to
+epileptic fits. The clergy and grandees, in consequence, looked upon
+Peter as the most promising successor to the throne. But he was still
+only a child, not yet ten years of age.
+
+The czar Alexis had left also several daughters; but in those days the
+fate of princesses of the blood was a harsh one. They were not permitted
+to marry, and were consigned to convents, where they knew nothing of
+what was passing in the busy world without. One of the daughters, Sophia
+by name, had escaped from this fate. At her earnest request she was
+taken from the convent and permitted to nurse her sickly brother
+Theodore.
+
+She was a woman of high intelligence, bold and ambitious by nature, and
+during her residence in court learned much of the politics of the empire
+and took some part in its government. After the death of Theodore she
+contrived to have herself named regent for her two brothers, Ivan being
+plainly unfit to rule, and Peter too young.
+
+There are many stories told about her, of which probably the half are
+not true. It is said that she kept her young brother at a distance from
+Moscow, where she surrounded him with ministers of evil, whose business
+it was to encourage him in riot and dissipation, to the end that he
+might become a moral monster, odious and insupportable to the nation at
+large. Such a course had been pursued with Ivan the Terrible, and to it
+was largely due his incredible iniquity.
+
+If Sophia had really any such purpose in view, she was playing with
+edge-tools. She quite mistook the character of her young brother, and
+forgot that the same rule may work differently in different cases. The
+steps taken to make the boy base, if really so intended, aided to make
+him great. His morals were corrupted, his health was impaired, and his
+heart hardened by the excesses of his youth, but his removal from the
+palace atmosphere of flattery and effeminacy tended to make him
+self-reliant, while his free life in the country and the activity which
+it encouraged helped to develop the native energy of his character.
+
+It is probable that Sophia had no such intention to corrupt the nature
+of the child, for she showed no ill will against him. It was apparently
+to his mother, rather than to his sister, that his residence in the
+country was due, and he was obliged to go frequently to Moscow, to take
+part in ceremonial affairs, while his name was used in all public
+documents, many of which he was required to sign.
+
+From early life the boy had shown himself active, intelligent, quick to
+learn, and full of curiosity. He was particularly interested in military
+affairs, and playing at soldiers was one of the leading diversions of
+his youth. Only a day or two after a great riot in Moscow, in which
+numbers of nobles were slaughtered, and in which the child had looked
+unmoved into the savage faces of the rioters, he sent to the arsenal for
+drums, banners, and arms. Uniforms and wooden cannon were supplied him,
+and on his eleventh birthday--in 1683--he was allowed to have some real
+guns, with which he fired salutes.
+
+From his country home at Preobrajensk messengers came almost daily to
+Moscow for powder, lead, and shot; small brass and iron cannon were
+supplied the boy, and drummer-boys, selected from the different
+regiments, were sent to him. Thus he was allowed to play at soldier to
+his heart's content.
+
+A company was formed from the younger domestics of the place, fifty in
+number, the officers being sons of the boyars or lords. But these were
+required by the alert boy to pass through all the grades of the service,
+which he also did himself, serving successively as private, sergeant,
+lieutenant, and captain, and finally as colonel of the regiment which
+grew from this youthful company. Peter called his company "the guards,"
+but it was known in Moscow as the "pleasure company," or "troops for
+sport." In time, however, it grew into the Preobrajensky Guards, a
+celebrated regiment which is still kept up as the first regiment of the
+Russian Imperial Guard, and of which the emperor is always the colonel.
+Another company, formed on the same plan in an adjoining village, became
+the Semenofsky Regiment. From these rudiments grew the present Russian
+army.
+
+These military exercises soon ceased to be child's play to the active
+lad. He gave himself no rest from his prescribed duties, stood his watch
+in turn, shared in the labors of the camp, slept in the tents of his
+comrades, and partook of their fare. He used to lead his company on long
+marches, during which the strictest discipline was maintained, and the
+camps at night were guarded as in an enemy's country.
+
+On reaching his thirteenth year the boy took further steps in his
+military education, building a small fortress, whose remains are still
+preserved. This was constructed with great care, and took nearly a year
+to build. At the suggestion of a German officer it was named Pressburg,
+the name being given with much ceremony, Peter leading from Moscow a
+procession of most of the court officials and nobles to take part in the
+performance.
+
+These military sports were not enough for the active mind of the boy,
+who kept himself busy at a dozen labors. He used to hammer and forge in
+the blacksmith's shop, became an expert with the lathe, and learned the
+art of printing and binding books. He built himself a wheelbarrow and
+other articles which he needed, and at a later date it was said that he
+"knew excellently well fourteen trades."
+
+When in Moscow, Peter spent much of his time in the foreign quarter,
+joining his associates there in the beer, wine, and tobacco of which
+they were specially fond, and questioning them about a thousand subjects
+unknown to the Russians, thus acquiring a wide knowledge of men and
+affairs. He troubled himself little about rank or position, making a
+companion of any one, high or low, from whom anything could be learned,
+while any mechanical curiosity particularly attracted him.
+
+A sextant and astrolabe were brought him from France, of whose use no
+one could inform him, though he asked all whom he met. At length a Dutch
+merchant, Franz Timmermann by name, was brought him, who measured with
+the instrument the distance to a neighboring house.
+
+Peter was delighted, and eagerly asked to be taught how to use the
+instrument himself.
+
+"It is not so easy," replied Timmermann; "you must first learn
+arithmetic and geometry."
+
+Here was a new incentive. The boy at once set to work, spending all his
+leisure time, day and night, over these studies, to which he afterwards
+added geography and fortification. It was in this desultory way that his
+education was gained, no regular course of training being prescribed,
+and his strong self-will breaking through all family discipline.
+
+We may end here what we have to say about the boy's military activity.
+His army gradually grew until it numbered five thousand men, mainly
+foreigners, who were commanded by General Gordon, a Scotch officer.
+Lefort, a Swiss, who had become one of Peter's favorite companions, now
+undertook to raise an army of twelve thousand men. He succeeded in this,
+and unexpectedly found himself made general of this force.
+
+It is, however, of the boy's activity in naval affairs that we must now
+speak. Timmermann had become one of his constant companions, and was
+always teaching him something new. One day in 1688, when Peter was
+sixteen years old, he was wandering about one of the country estates of
+the throne, near the village of Ismailovo. An old building in the
+flax-yard attracted his attention, and he asked one of the servants what
+it was.
+
+"It is a storehouse," the man said, "in which was put all the rubbish
+that was left after the death of Nikita Romanof, who used to live here."
+
+Peter at once, curious to see this "rubbish," had the doors opened, went
+in, and looked about. In one corner, bottom upward, lay a boat, very
+different in build from the flat-bottomed, square-sterned boats which
+were in use on the Russian rivers.
+
+"What is that?" he asked.
+
+"It is an English boat," said Timmermann.
+
+"But what is it good for? Is it better than our boats?" demanded Peter.
+
+"Yes. If you had sails for it, you would find that it would not only go
+with the wind, but against the wind."
+
+"Against the wind! Is that possible? How can it be possible?"
+
+With his usual impatience, the boy wanted to try it at once. But the
+boat proved to be too rotten for use. It would need to be repaired and
+tarred, and a mast and sails would have to be made.
+
+Where could these be had? Who could make them? Timmermann was able to
+tell him. Some thirty years before, a number of Dutch ship-carpenters
+had been brought from Holland and had built some vessels on the Volga
+River for the czar Alexis. These had been burned by a brigand, and
+Brandt, the builder, had returned to Moscow, where he still worked as a
+joiner. In those days it was easier to get into Russia than to get out
+again, foreigners who entered the land being held there as virtual
+prisoners. Even General Gordon tried in vain to get back to his native
+land.
+
+Old Brandt was found, looked over the boat, put it in order, and
+launched it on a neighboring stream. To Peter's surprise and delight, he
+saw the boat moving under sail up and down the river, turning to right
+and left in obedience to the helm. Greatly excited, he called on Brandt
+to stop, jumped in, and, under the old man's directions, began to manage
+the boat himself.
+
+But the river was too narrow and the water too shallow for easy
+sailing, and the energetic boy had the boat dragged overland to a large
+pond, where it went better, but still not to his satisfaction. Where was
+a better body of water? He was told that there was a large lake about
+fifty miles away, but that it would be easier to build a new boat than
+to drag the English boat that distance.
+
+"Can you do that?" asked the eager boy.
+
+"Yes, sire," said Brandt, "but I will need many things."
+
+"Oh, that does not matter at all," said Peter. "We can have anything."
+
+No time was lost. Brandt, with one of his old comrades and Timmermann,
+went to work at once in the woods bordering the lake, Peter working with
+them when he could get away from Moscow, where he was frequently needed.
+It took time. Timber had to be prepared, a hut built to live in, and a
+dock to launch the boats, which were built on a larger scale than the
+small English craft. Thus it was not until the following spring that the
+new boats were ready to launch.
+
+Peter meanwhile had been married. But the charms of his wife could not
+keep him from his beloved boats. Back he went, aided in completing and
+launching the new craft, and took such delight in sailing them about the
+lake that he could hardly be induced to return to Moscow for important
+duties.
+
+In this humble way began the Russian navy, which had grown to large
+proportions before Peter died. The little English boat, which some think
+was one sent by Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, has ever since
+Peter's time been known as the "Grand-sire of the Russian navy." It is
+kept with the greatest care in a small brick building within the
+fortress at St. Petersburg, and was one of the principal objects of
+interest in the great parade in that city in 1870 on the two hundredth
+anniversary of Peter's birth.
+
+It will suffice to say, in conclusion, that shortly after these events
+Peter became the reigning czar, and turned from sport to earnest. Sophia
+had enjoyed so long the pleasure of ruling that her ambition grew with
+its exercise, and she sought to retain her position as long as possible.
+It is even said that she laid a plot to assassinate Peter, so that only
+the feeble Ivan should be left. The boy, told that assassins were
+seeking him, fled for his life. His fright seems to have been
+groundless, but it made him an undying enemy of his sister. The affair
+ended in the bulk of the nobility and soldiery turning to his side and
+in Sophia being obliged to leave the throne for a convent, where she
+spent the remainder of her life in the misery of strict seclusion.
+
+[Illustration: ALEXANDER III., CZAR OF RUSSIA.]
+
+
+
+
+_CARPENTER PETER OF ZAANDAM._
+
+
+On the banks of the river Zaan, about five miles from Amsterdam, lies
+the picturesque little town of Zaandam, with its cottages of blue,
+green, and pink, half hidden among the trees, while a multitude of
+windmills surround the town like so many monuments to thrift and
+enterprise. Here, two centuries ago, ship-building was conducted on a
+great scale, the timber being sawed by windmill power, while the workmen
+were so numerous that a vessel was often on the sea in five weeks after
+the keel had been laid.
+
+To this place, in August, 1697, came a workman of foreign birth, who
+found humble quarters in a small frame hut and entered himself as a
+ship-carpenter at the wharf of Lynst Rogge. There was nothing specially
+noticeable about the stranger, who wore a workman's dress and a
+tarpaulin hat. But with him were some comrades dressed in the strange
+garb of Russia, who attracted the attention of the people.
+
+As for the new workman, he did not long escape curious looks. The rumor
+had got about that no less a personage than the Czar of Russia was in
+the town, and it began to be suspected that this unobtrusive stranger
+might be the man, so that it was not long before inquisitive eyes began
+to follow him wherever he went. The rumor soon brought large crowds
+from Amsterdam, whose presence made the streets of the small Dutch town
+anything but comfortable.
+
+It was well known that Peter I., Czar of Russia, was travelling through
+the nations of the West. A large embassy, composed of several hundred
+people, some of them the highest officials of the court, had left the
+Muscovite kingdom, and visited the several courts and large cities on
+their route, being everywhere received with the greatest distinction.
+But the czar did not appear openly among them. He was there in disguise,
+but had given strict orders that his presence should not be revealed. He
+hated crowds, hated adulation, and wished only to be let alone to see
+and learn all he could. So while the ambassadors were receiving the
+highest honors of kingdoms and courts and bowing and parading to their
+hearts' content, the czar kept himself in the background as an amused
+spectator, thought by most observers to be one of the servants of the
+gorgeous train.
+
+And thus he reached Zaandam, which he had been told was the best place
+to learn how ships were built. Here he saw fishing in the river one of
+his old acquaintances of the foreign quarter of Moscow, a smith named
+Gerrit Kist. Calling him from his rod, and binding him to secrecy, he
+told him why he had come to Holland, and insisted on taking up quarters
+in his house. This house, a small frame hut, is now preserved as a
+sacred object, enclosed within a brick building, and has long been a
+place of pilgrimage even for royal travellers. Emperors and kings have
+bent their lofty heads to enter its low door.
+
+Yet Peter lived in Zaandam only a week, and during that week did little
+work at ship-building, spending much of his time in rowing about among
+the shipping, and visiting most of the factories and mills, at one of
+which he made a sheet of paper with his own royal hands.
+
+One day the disguised emperor met with an adventure. He had bought a
+hatful of plums, and was eating them in the most plebeian fashion as he
+walked along the street, when he met a crowd of boys. He shared his
+fruit with some of these, but those to whom he refused to give plums
+began to follow him with boyish reviling, and when he laughed at them
+they took to pelting him with mud and stones. Here was a situation for
+an emperor away from home. The Czar of all the Russias had to take to
+his heels and run for refuge to the Three Swans Inn, where he sent for
+the burgomaster of the town, told who he was, and demanded aid and
+relief. At least we may suppose so, for an edict was soon issued
+threatening punishment to all who should insult "distinguished persons
+who wished to remain unknown."
+
+The end of Peter's stay soon came. A man in Zaandam had received a
+letter from his son in Moscow, saying that the czar was with the great
+Russian embassy, and describing him so closely that he could no longer
+remain unknown. This letter was seen by Pomp, the barber of Zaandam, and
+when Peter came into his place with his Russian comrades he at once knew
+him from the description and spread the news.
+
+From that time the czar had no rest. Wherever he went he was followed by
+crowds of curious people. They grew so annoying that at length he
+leaped in anger from his boat and gave one of the most forward of his
+persecutors a sharp cuff on the cheek.
+
+"Bravo, Marsje!" cried the crowd in delight: "you are made a knight."
+
+The czar rushed angrily to an inn, where he shut himself up out of
+sight. The next day a large ship was to be moved across the dike by
+means of capstans and rollers, a difficult operation, in which Peter
+took deep interest. A place was reserved for him to see it, but the
+crowd became so great as to drive back the guards, break down the
+railings, and half fill the reserved space. Peter, seeing this, refused
+to leave his house. The burgomaster and other high officials begged him
+to come, but the most he could be got to do was to thrust his head out
+of the door and observe the situation.
+
+"_Te veel volks, te veel volks_" ("too many people"), he bluntly cried,
+and refused to budge.
+
+The next day was Sunday, and all Amsterdam seemed to have come to
+Zaandam to see its distinguished guest. He escaped them by fleeing to
+Amsterdam. Getting to a yacht he had bought, and to which he had fitted
+a bowsprit with his own hands, he put to sea, giving no heed to warnings
+of danger from the furious wind that was blowing. Three hours after he
+reached Amsterdam, where his ambassadors then were, and where they were
+to have a formal reception the next day.
+
+Receptions were well enough for ambassadors, but they were idle flummery
+to the czar, who had come to see, not to be seen, and who did his best
+to keep out of sight. He visited the fine town hall, inspected the
+docks, saw a comedy and a ballet, consented to sit through a great
+dinner, witnessed a splendid display of fireworks, and, most interesting
+to him of all, was entertained with a great naval sham fight, which
+lasted a whole day.
+
+Zaandam has the credit of having been the scene of Peter the Great's
+labor as a shipwright, but it was really at Amsterdam that his life as a
+workman was passed. At his request he was given the privilege of working
+at the docks of the East India Company, a house being assigned him
+within the enclosure where he could dwell undisturbed, free from the
+curiosity of crowds. As a mark of respect it was determined to begin the
+construction of a new frigate, one hundred feet long, so that the
+distinguished workman might see the whole process of the building of a
+ship. With his usual impetuosity Peter wished to begin work immediately,
+and could hardly be induced to wait for the fireworks to burn themselves
+out. Then he set out for Zaandam on his yacht to fetch his tools, and
+the next day, August 30, presented himself as a workman at the East
+India Company's wharf.
+
+For more than four months, with occasional breaks, Peter worked
+diligently as a ship-carpenter, ten of his Russian companions--probably
+much against their will--working at the wharf with him. He was known
+simply as Baas Peter (Carpenter Peter), and, while sitting on a log at
+rest, with his hatchet between his knees, was willing to talk with any
+one who addressed him by this name, but had no answer for those who
+called him Sire or Your Majesty. Others of the Russians were put to work
+elsewhere, to study the construction of masts, blocks, sails, etc., some
+of them were entered as sailors before the mast, and Prince Alexander of
+Imeritia went to the Hague to study artillery. None of them was allowed
+"to take his ease at his inn."
+
+Peter insisted on being treated as a common workman, and would not
+permit any difference to be made between him and his fellow-laborers. He
+also demanded the usual wages for his work. On one occasion, when the
+Earl of Portland and another nobleman came to the yard to have a sight
+of him, the overseer, to indicate him, called out, "Carpenter Peter of
+Zaandam, why don't you help your comrades?" Without a word, Peter put
+his shoulders under a log which several men were carrying, and helped to
+lift it to its place.
+
+His evenings were spent in studying the theory of ship-building, and his
+spare hours were fully occupied in observation. He visited everything
+worth seeing, factories, museums, cabinets of coins, theatres,
+hospitals, etc., constantly making shrewd remarks and inquiries, and
+soon becoming known from his quick questions, "What is that for? How
+does that work? That will I see."
+
+He went to Zaandam to see the Greenland whaling fleet, visited the
+celebrated botanical garden with the great Boerhaave, studied the
+microscope at Delft under Leuwenhoek, became intimate with the military
+engineer Coehorn, talked with Schynvoet of architecture, and learned to
+etch from Schonebeck. An impression of a plate made by him, of
+Christianity victorious over Islam, is still extant.
+
+He made himself familiar with Dutch home life, mingled with the
+merchants engaged in the Russian trade, went to the Botermarkt every
+market-day, and took lessons from a travelling dentist, experimenting on
+his own servants and suite, probably not much to their enjoyment. He
+mended his own clothes, learned enough of cobbling to make himself a
+pair of slippers, and, in short, was insatiable in his search for
+information of every available kind.
+
+His work on the frigate whose keel he had helped to lay was continued
+until it was launched. It was well built, and for many years proved a
+good and useful ship, braving the perils of the seas in the East India
+trade. But with all this the imperial carpenter was not satisfied. The
+Dutch methods did not please him. The ship-masters seemed to work
+without rules other than the "rule of thumb," having no theory of
+ship-building from which the best proportions of a vessel could be
+deduced.
+
+Learning that things were ordered differently in English ship-yards,
+that there work was done by rule and precept, Peter sent an order to the
+Russian docks not to allow the Dutch shipwrights to work as they
+pleased, but to put them under Danish or English overseers. For himself,
+he resolved to go to England and follow up his studies there. King
+William had sent him a warm invitation and presented him a splendid
+yacht, light, beautifully proportioned, and armed with twenty brass
+cannon. Delighted with the present, he sailed in it to England,
+escorted by an English fleet, and in London found an abiding-place in a
+house which a few years before had been the refuge of William Penn when
+charged with treason. Here he slept in a small room with four or five
+companions, and when the King of England came to visit him, received his
+fellow-monarch in his shirt-sleeves. The air of the room was so bad
+that, though the weather was very cold, William insisted on a window
+being raised.
+
+In England the czar, though managing to see much outside the ship-yards,
+worked steadily at Deptford for several months, leaving only when he had
+gained all the special knowledge which he could obtain. His admiration
+for the English ship-builders was high, he afterwards saying that but
+for his journey to England he would have always remained a bungler.
+While here he engaged many men to take service in Russia, shipwrights,
+engineers, and others; he also engaged numerous officers for his navy
+from Holland, several French surgeons, and various persons of other
+nationality, the whole numbering from six to eight hundred skilled
+artisans and professional experts. To raise money for their advance
+payment he sold the monopoly of the Russian tobacco trade for twenty
+thousand pounds. Sixty years before, his grandfather Michael had
+forbidden the use of tobacco in Russia under pain of death, and the
+prejudice against it was still strong. But in spite of this the use of
+tobacco was rapidly spreading, and Peter thus threw down the bars.
+
+Great numbers of anecdotes are afloat about Peter's doings in Holland
+and England,--many of them, doubtless, invented. The sight of a great
+monarch going about in workman's clothes and laboring like a common
+ship-carpenter was apt to aid the imagination of story-tellers and give
+rise to numerous tales with little fact to sustain them.
+
+In May, 1698, Peter left England and proceeded to Amsterdam, where his
+embassy had remained, often in great distress about him, for the winter
+was cold and stormy and at one time no news was received from him for a
+month. From Amsterdam he made his way to Vienna, whence he proposed to
+go to Venice and Rome, but was prevented by disturbing news from Moscow,
+which turned his steps homeward. Here he was to show a new phase of his
+varied character, as will be seen in the following tale.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FALL OF THE STRELITZ._
+
+
+History presents us with four instances of an imperial soldiery who took
+the power into their own hands and for a time ruled as the tyrants of a
+nation. These were the Pretorian Guards of Rome, the Mamelukes of Egypt,
+the Janissaries of Turkey, and the Strelitz of Russia. Of these, the
+Pretorian Guards remained pre-eminent, and made emperors at their will.
+The other three came to a terrible end. History elsewhere records the
+tragic fate of the Mamelukes and the Janissaries: we are here concerned
+only with that of the Strelitz corps of Russia.
+
+The Strelitz were the first regular military force of Russia, a
+permanent militia of fusileers, formed during the early reign of Ivan
+the Terrible, and themselves in time becoming a terror to the nation.
+The first serious outbreak of this dangerous civic guard was on the
+nomination of Peter I. to the throne of the czar. They did not dream
+then of the terrible revenge which this despised boy would take upon
+them.
+
+Two days after the funeral of the czar Theodore the insurrection began,
+the Strelitz marching in an armed body to the Kremlin, where they
+accused nine of their colonels of defrauding them of their pay. The
+frightened ministers hastened to dismiss these officers, but this did
+not satisfy the savage soldiery, who insisted on their being delivered
+into their hands. This done, the unfortunate officers were sentenced to
+be scourged, some of them by that fearful Russian whip called the knout.
+
+Their success in this outbreak led the Strelitz to greater outrages. The
+tiger in their savage natures was let loose, and only blood could
+appease its rage. Marching to the Kremlin, they declared that the late
+czar had been poisoned by his doctor, and demanded the death of all
+those in the plot. Breaking into the palace, they seized two of the
+suspected princes and flung them from the windows, to be received upon
+the pikes of the soldiers in the street below. The next victim was one
+of the Narishkins, the uncles of Peter the Great. He was massacred in
+the same brutal manner and his bleeding body dragged through the
+streets. Three of the proscribed nobles had fled for sanctuary to a
+church, but were torn from the altar, stripped of their clothing, and
+cut to pieces with knives.
+
+The next victim was a friend and favorite of the Strelitz, who was
+killed under the belief that he was one of the Narishkins. Discovering
+their error, the assassins carried the mangled body of the young
+nobleman to the house of his father for interment. The old man, timid by
+nature, did not dare to complain of the savage act, and even rewarded
+them for bringing him the body of his son. For this weakness he was
+bitterly reproached by his wife and daughters and the weeping wife of
+the victim.
+
+"What could I do?" pleaded the helpless father; "let us wait for an
+opportunity to be revenged."
+
+A revengeful servant overheard these words and repeated them to the
+soldiers. In a sudden fury the savages returned, dragged the old man
+from the room by the hair of his head, and cut his throat at his own
+door.
+
+Meanwhile some of the Strelitz, seeking the Dutch physician Vongad, who
+had attended the dying czar and was accused of poisoning him, met his
+son and asked where his father was. "I do not know," replied the
+trembling youth. His ignorance was instantly punished with death.
+
+In a few minutes a German physician fell in their way. "You are a
+doctor," they cried. "If you have not poisoned our master Theodore, you
+have poisoned others. You deserve death." And in a moment the unlucky
+doctor fell a victim to their blind rage.
+
+The Dutch physician was at length discovered and dragged to the palace.
+Here the princesses begged hard for his life, declaring that he was a
+skilful doctor and a good man and had worked hard to save their
+brother's life. They answered that he deserved to die as a sorcerer as
+well as a physician, for they had found the skeleton of a toad and the
+skin of a snake in his cabinet.
+
+The next victim demanded was Ivan Narishkin, who they were sure was
+somewhere concealed in the palace. Not finding him, they threatened to
+burn down the building unless he were delivered into their hands. At
+this terrifying threat the young man was taken from his place of
+concealment and brought to them by the patriarch, who held in his hands
+an image of the Virgin Mary which was said to have performed miracles.
+The princesses surrounded the victim, and, kneeling to the soldiers,
+prayed with tears for his life.
+
+All their supplications and the demands of the venerable patriarch were
+without effect on the savage soldiery, who dragged their captives to the
+bottom of the stairway, went through the forms of a mock trial, and
+condemned them to the torture. They were sentenced to be cut to pieces,
+a form of punishment to which parricides are condemned in China and
+Tartary. This tragedy went on until all the proscribed on whom they
+could lay their hands had perished and Sophia felt secure in her power.
+
+In the end, Ivan and Peter were declared joint sovereigns (1682), and
+their sister Sophia was made regent. The acts of the Strelitz were
+approved and they rewarded, the estates of their victims were
+confiscated in their favor, and a monument was erected on which the
+names of the victims were inscribed as traitors to their country.
+
+The Strelitz had learned their power, and took frequent occasion to
+exercise it. Twice again they broke out in revolt during the regency of
+Sophia. After the accession of Peter their hostility continued. He had
+sent them to fight on the frontiers. He had supplanted them with
+regiments drilled in the European manner. He had organized a corps of
+twelve thousand foreigners and heretics. He had ordered the construction
+of a fleet of a hundred vessels, which would add to the weight of taxes
+and bring more foreigners into the country. And he proposed to leave
+Russia, to journey in the lands of the heretics, and to bring back to
+their sacred land the customs of profane Europe.
+
+All this was too much for the leaders of the Strelitz, who represented
+old Russia, as Peter represented new. They resolved to sacrifice the
+czar to their rage. Tradition tells the following story, which, though
+probably not true, is at least interesting. Two leaders of the Strelitz
+laid a plot to start a fire at night, feeling sure that Peter, with his
+usual activity, would hasten to the scene. In the confusion attending
+the fire they meant to murder him, and then to massacre all the
+foreigners whom he had introduced into Moscow.
+
+[Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN THE PALACE OF PETER THE GREAT. MOSCOW.]
+
+The time fixed for the consummation of this plot was at hand. A banquet
+was held, at which the principal conspirators assembled, and where they
+sought in deep potations the courage necessary for their murderous work.
+Unfortunately for them, liquor does not act on all alike. While usually
+giving boldness, it sometimes produces timidity. Two of the villains
+lost their courage through their potations, left the room on some
+pretext, promising to return in time, and hastened to the czar with the
+story of the plot.
+
+Peter knew not the meaning of the words timidity and procrastination.
+His plans were instantly laid. The time fixed for the conflagration was
+midnight. He gave orders that the hall in which the conspirators were
+assembled should be surrounded exactly at eleven. Soon after, thinking
+that the hour had come, he sought the place alone and boldly entered
+the room, fully expecting to find the conspirators in the hands of his
+guards.
+
+To his consternation, not a guard was present, and he found himself
+alone and unarmed in the midst of a furious band who were just swearing
+to compass his destruction.
+
+The situation was a critical one. The conspirators, dismayed at this
+unlooked-for visit, rose in confusion. Peter was furious at his guards
+for having exposed him to this peril, but instantly perceived that there
+was only one course for him to pursue. He advanced among the throng of
+traitors with a countenance that showed no trace of his emotions, and
+pleasantly remarked,--
+
+"I saw the light in your house while passing, and, thinking that you
+must be having a gay time together, I have come in to share your
+pleasure and drain a cup with you."
+
+Then, seating himself at the table, he filled a cup and drank to his
+would-be assassins, who, on their feet about him, could not avoid
+responding to the toast and drinking his health.
+
+But this state of affairs did not long continue. The courage of the
+conspirators returned, and they began to exchange looks and signs. The
+opportunity had fallen into their hands; now was the time to avail
+themselves of it. One of them leaned over to Sukanim, one of their
+leaders, and said, in a low tone,--
+
+"Brother, it is time."
+
+"Not yet," said Sukanim, hesitating at the critical moment.
+
+At that instant Peter heard the footsteps of his guards outside, and,
+starting to his feet, knocked the leader of the assassins down by a
+violent blow in his face, exclaiming,--
+
+"If it is not yet time for you, scoundrel, it is for me."
+
+At the same moment the guards entered the room, and the conspirators,
+panic-stricken by the sight, fell on their knees and begged for pardon.
+
+"Chain them!" said the czar, in a terrible voice.
+
+Turning then to the commander of the guards, he struck him and accused
+him of having disobeyed orders. But the officer proving to him that the
+hour fixed had just arrived, the czar, in sudden remorse at his haste,
+clasped him in his arms, kissed him on the forehead, proclaimed his
+fidelity, and gave the traitors into his charge.
+
+And now Peter showed the savage which lay within him under the thin
+veneer of civilization. The conspirators were put to death with the
+cruellest of tortures, and, to complete the act of barbarity, their
+heads were exposed on the summit of a column with their limbs arranged
+around them as ornaments.
+
+Satisfied that this fearful example would keep Russia tranquil during
+his absence, Peter set out on his journey, visiting most of the
+countries of Western Europe. He had reached Vienna, and was on the point
+of setting out for Venice, when word was brought him from Russia that
+the Strelitz had broken out in open insurrection and were marching from
+their posts on the frontier upon Moscow.
+
+The czar at once left Vienna and journeyed with all possible speed to
+Russia, reaching Moscow in September, 1698. His appearance took all by
+surprise, for none knew that he had yet left Austria.
+
+He came too late to suppress the insurrection. That had been already
+done by General Gordon, who, marching in all haste, had met the rebels
+about thirty miles from Moscow and called on them to surrender. As they
+refused and attacked the troops, he opened on them with cannon, put them
+to flight, and of the survivors took captive about two thousand. These
+were decimated on the spot, and the remainder imprisoned.
+
+This was punishment enough for a soldier, but not enough for an
+autocrat, whose mind was haunted by dark suspicions, and who looked upon
+the outbreak as a plot to dethrone him and to call his sister Sophia to
+the throne. In his treatment of the prisoners the spirit of the monster
+Ivan IV. seems to have entered into his soul, and the cruelty shown,
+while common enough in old-time Russia, is revolting to the modern mind.
+
+The trial was dragged out through six weeks, with daily torture of some
+of the accused, under the eyes of the czar himself, who sought to force
+from them a confession that Sophia had been concerned in the outbreak.
+The wives of the prisoners, all the women servants of the princesses,
+even poor beggars who lived on their charity, were examined under
+torture. The princesses themselves, Peter's sisters, were questioned by
+the czar, though he did not go so far as to torture them. Yet with all
+this nothing was discovered. There was not a word to connect Sophia with
+the revolt.
+
+The trial over, the executions began. Of the prisoners, some were
+hanged, some beheaded, others broken on the wheel. It is said that those
+beheaded were made to kneel in rows of fifty before trunks of trees laid
+on the ground, and that Peter compelled his courtiers and nobles to act
+as executioners, Mentchikof specially distinguishing himself in this
+work of slaughter. It is even asserted that the czar wielded the axe
+himself, though of this there is some doubt. The opinion grew among the
+people that neither Peter nor Prince Ramodanofsky, his cruel viceroy,
+could sleep until they had tasted blood, and a letter from the prince
+contains the following lurid sentence: "_I am always washing myself in
+blood._"
+
+The headless bodies of the dead were left where they had fallen. The
+long Russian winter was just beginning, and for five months they lay
+unburied, a frightful spectacle for the eyes of the citizens of Moscow.
+
+Of those hanged, nearly two hundred were left depending from a large
+square gallows in front of the cell of Sophia at the convent in which
+she was confined, and with a horrible refinement of cruelty three of
+these bodies were so placed as to hang all winter under her very window,
+one of them holding in his hand a folded paper to represent a petition
+for her aid.
+
+The six regiments of Strelitz still on the frontier showed signs of a
+similar outbreak, but the news of the executions taught them that it was
+safest to keep quiet. But many of them were brought in chains to Moscow
+and punished for their intentions. Various stories are told of Peter's
+cruelty in connection with these executions. One is that he beheaded
+eighty with his own hand, Plestchef, one of his boyars, holding them by
+the hair. Another story, told by M. Printz, the Prussian ambassador,
+says that at an entertainment given him by the czar, Peter, when drunk,
+had twenty rebels brought in from the prisons, whom he beheaded in quick
+succession, drinking a bumper after each blow, the whole concluding
+within the hour. He even asked the ambassador to try his skill in the
+same way. It may be said here, however, that these stories rest upon
+very poor evidence, and that anecdote-makers have painted Peter in
+blacker colors than he deserves.
+
+In the end the corps of the Strelitz was abolished, their houses and
+lands in Moscow were taken from the survivors, and all were exiled into
+the country, where they became simple villagers.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CRUSADE AGAINST BEARDS AND CLOAKS._
+
+
+The return of Peter the Great from his European journey was marked by
+other events than his cruel revenge upon the rebellious Strelitz. That
+had affected only a few thousand people; the reforms he sought to
+introduce affected the nation at large. The Russians were then more
+Oriental than European in style, wearing the long caftan or robe of
+Persia and Turkey, which descended to their heels, while their beards
+were like those of the patriarchs, the man deeming himself most in honor
+who had the longest and fullest crop of hair upon his face.
+
+[Illustration: PETER THE GREAT.]
+
+To Peter, fresh from the West, and strongly imbued with European views,
+all this was ridiculous, if not abominable. He determined to reform it
+all, and at once set to work in his impetuous way, which could not brook
+a day's delay, to deprive the Russians of their beards and the tails of
+their coats. He had scarcely arrived before the boyars and leading
+citizens of Moscow, who flocked to congratulate him on his return, were
+taken aback by the edict that whiskers were condemned, and that the
+razor must be set at work without delay upon their honorable chins.
+
+This edict was like a thunder-clap from a clear sky. The Russians
+admired and revered their beards. They were time-honored and sacred in
+their eyes. To lose them was like losing their family trees and patents
+of nobility. But Peter was without reverence for the past, and his word
+was law. He had ordered a mowing and reaping of hair, and the harvest
+must be made, or worse might come. General Shein, commander-in-chief of
+the army, was the first to yield to the imperative edict and submit his
+venerable beard to the indignity of the razor's edge. The old age seemed
+past and the new age come when Shein walked shamefacedly into court with
+a clean chin.
+
+The example thus set was quickly followed. Beards were tabooed within
+the precincts of the court. All shared the same fate, none being left to
+laugh at the rest. The patriarch, it is true, was exempted, through awe
+for his high office in the Church, while reverence for advanced years
+reprieved Prince Tcherkasy, and Tikhon Streshnef was excused out of
+honor for his services as guardian of the czaritza. Every one else
+within the court had to submit to the razor's fatal edge or feel the
+czar's more fatal displeasure, and beards fell like "autumnal leaves
+that strow the brooks in Vallombrosa."
+
+An observer speaks as follows concerning a feast given by General Shein:
+"A crowd of boyars, scribes, and military officers almost incredible was
+assembled there, and among them were several common sailors, with whom
+the czar repeatedly mixed, divided apples, and even honored one of them
+by calling him his brother. A salvo of twenty-five guns marked each
+toast. Nor could the irksome offices of the barber check the
+festivities of the day, though it was well known he was enacting the
+part of jester by appointment at the czar's court. It was of evil omen
+to make show of reluctance as the razor approached the chin, and
+hesitation was to be forthwith punished with a box on the ears. In this
+way, between mirth and the wine-cup, many were admonished by this insane
+ridicule to abandon the olden guise."
+
+For Peter to shave was easy, as he had little beard and a very thin
+moustache. But by the old-fashioned Russian of his day the beard was
+cherished as the Turk now cherishes his hirsute symbol of dignity or the
+Chinaman his long-drawn-out queue. Shortly after Peter came to the
+throne the patriarch Adrian had delivered himself in words of thunder
+against all who were so unholy and heretical as to cut or shave their
+beards, a God-given ornament, which had been worn by prophets and
+apostles and by Christ himself. Only heretics, apostates,
+idol-worshippers, and image-breakers among monarchs had forced their
+subjects to shave, he declared, while all the great and good emperors
+had indicated their piety in the length of their beards.
+
+To Peter, on the contrary, the beard was the symbol of barbarity. He was
+not content to say that his subjects might shave, he decreed that they
+_must_ shave. It began half in jest, it was continued in solid earnest.
+He could not well execute the non-shavers, or cut off the heads of those
+who declined to cut off their beards, but he could fine them, and he
+did. The order was sent forth that all Russians, with the exception of
+the clergy, should shave. Those who preferred to keep their beards
+could do so by paying a yearly tax into the public treasury. This was
+fixed at a kopeck (one penny) for peasants, but for the higher classes
+varied from thirty to a hundred rubles (from sixty dollars to two
+hundred dollars). The merchants, being at once the richest and most
+conservative class, paid the highest tax. Every one who paid the tax was
+given a bronze token, which had to be worn about the neck and renewed
+every year.
+
+The czar would allow no one to be about him who did not shave, and many
+submitted through "terror of having their beards (in a merry humor)
+pulled out by the roots, or taken so rough off that some of the skin
+went with them." Many of those who shaved continued to do reverence to
+their beards by carrying them within their bosoms as sacred objects, to
+be buried in their graves, in order that a just account might be
+rendered to St. Nicholas when they should come to the next world.
+
+The ukase against the beard was soon followed by one against the caftan,
+or long cloak, the old Russian dress. The czar and the leading officers
+of his embassy set the example of wearing the German dress, and he cut
+off, with his own hands, the long sleeves of some of his officers.
+"Those things are in your way," he would say. "You are safe nowhere with
+them. At one moment you upset a glass, then you forgetfully dip them in
+the sauce. Get gaiters made of them."
+
+On January 14, 1700, a decree was issued commanding all courtiers and
+officials throughout the empire to wear the foreign dress. This decree
+had to be frequently repeated, and models of the clothing exposed. It is
+said that patterns of the garments and copies of the decrees were hung
+up together at the gates of the towns, while all who disobeyed the order
+were compelled to pay a fine. Those who yielded were obliged "to kneel
+down at the gates of the city and have their coats cut off just even
+with the ground," the part that lay on the ground as they kneeled being
+condemned to suffer by the shears. "Being done with a good humor, it
+occasioned mirth among the people, and soon broke the custom of their
+wearing long coats, especially in places near Moscow and those towns
+wherever the czar came."
+
+This demand did not apply to the peasantry, and was therefore more
+easily executed. Even the women were required to change their Russian
+robes for foreign fashions. Peter's sisters set the example, which was
+quickly followed, the women showing themselves much less conservative
+than the men in the adoption of new styles of dress.
+
+The reform did not end here. Decrees were issued against the high
+Russian boots, against the use of the Russian saddle, and even against
+the long Russian knife. Peter seemed to be infected with a passion for
+reform, and almost everything Russian was ordered to give way before the
+influx of Western modes. Western ideas did not come with them. To change
+the dress does not change the thoughts, and it does not civilize a man
+to shave his chin. Though outwardly conforming to the advanced fashions
+of the West, inwardly the Russians continued to conform to the
+unprogressive conceptions of the East.
+
+It may be said that these changes did not come to stay. They were too
+revolutionary to take deep root. There is no disputing the fact that a
+coat down to the heels is more comfortable in a cold climate than one
+ending at the knees, and is likely to be worn in preference. Students in
+Russia to-day wear the red shirt, the loose trousers tucked into the
+high boots, and the sleeveless caftan of the peasant, to show that they
+are Slavs in feeling, while the old Russian costume is the regulation
+court dress for ladies on occasions of state.
+
+We cannot here name the host of other reforms which Peter introduced.
+The army was dressed and organized in the fashion of the West. A navy
+was rapidly built, and before many years Russia was winning victories at
+sea. Peter had not worked at Amsterdam and Deptford in vain. The money
+of the country was reorganized, and new coins were issued. The year,
+which had always begun in Russia on September 1, was now ordered to
+begin on January 1, the first new year on the new system, January 1,
+1700, being introduced with impressive ceremonies. Up to this time the
+Russians had counted their year from the supposed date of creation. They
+were now ordered to date their chronology from the birth of Christ, the
+first year of the new era being dated 1700 instead of 7208. Unluckily,
+the Gregorian calendar was not at the same time introduced, and Russia
+still clings to the old style, so that each date in that country is
+twelve days behind the same date in the rest of the Christian world.
+
+Another reform of an important character was introduced. Peter had
+observed the system of local self-government in other countries, and
+resolved to have something like it in his realm. In Little Russia the
+people already had the right of electing their local officials. A
+similar system was extended to the whole empire, the merchants in the
+towns being permitted to choose good and honest men, who formed a
+council which had general charge of municipal affairs. Where bribery and
+corruption were discovered among these officials the knout and exile
+were applied as inducements to honesty in office. Even death was
+threatened; yet bribery went on. Honesty in office cannot be made to
+order, even by a czar.
+
+
+
+
+_MAZEPPA, THE COSSACK CHIEF._
+
+
+Among the romantic characters of history none have attained higher
+celebrity than the hero of our present tale, whose remarkable adventure,
+often told in story, has been made immortal in Lord Byron's famous poem
+of "Mazeppa." Those who wish to read it in all its dramatic intensity
+must apply to the poem. Here it can only be given in plain prose.
+
+Mazeppa was a scion of a poor but noble Polish family, and became, while
+quite young, a page at the court of John Casimir, King of Poland. There
+he remained until he reached manhood, when he returned to the vicinity
+of his birth. And now occurred the striking event on which the fame of
+our hero rests. The court-reared young man is said to have engaged in an
+intrigue with a Polish lady of high rank, or at least was suspected by
+her jealous husband of having injured him in his honor.
+
+Bent upon a revenge suitable to the barbarous ideas of that age, the
+furious nobleman had the young man seized, cruelly scourged, and in the
+end stripped naked and firmly bound upon the back of an untamed horse of
+the steppes. The wild animal, terrified by the strange burden upon its
+back, was then set free on the borders of its native wilds of the
+Ukraine, and, uncontrolled by bit or rein, galloped madly for miles upon
+miles through forest and over plain, until, exhausted by the violence
+of its flight, it halted in its wild career. For a dramatic rendering of
+this frightful ride our readers must be referred to Byron's glowing
+verse.
+
+The savage Polish lord had not dreamed that his victim would escape
+alive, but fortune favored the poor youth. He was found, still fettered
+to the animal's back, insensible and half dead, by some Cossack
+peasants, who rescued him from his fearful situation, took him to their
+hut, and eventually restored him to animation.
+
+Mazeppa was well educated and fully versed in the art of war of that
+day. He made his home with his new friends, to whom his courage,
+agility, and sagacity proved such warm recommendations that he soon
+became highly popular among the Cossack clans. He was appointed
+secretary and adjutant to Samilovitch, the hetman or chief of the
+Cossacks, and on the disgrace and exile of this chief in 1687 Mazeppa
+succeeded him as leader of the tribe. He distinguished himself
+particularly in the war waged by the army of the Princess Sophia against
+the Turks and Tartars of the Crimea, in which Mazeppa led his Cossack
+followers with the greatest courage and skill.
+
+On the return of the army to Moscow, Prince Galitzin, its leader,
+brought into the capital a strong force of Cossacks, with Mazeppa at
+their head. It was the first time the Cossacks had been allowed to enter
+Moscow, and their presence gave great offence. It was supposed to be a
+part of the plot of Sophia to dethrone her young brother and seize the
+throne for herself. It was known that they would execute to the full
+any orders given them by their chief; but their motions were so
+restricted by the indignant people that the ambitious woman, if she
+entertained such a design, found herself unable to employ them in it.
+
+The daring hetman of the Cossacks became afterwards a cherished friend
+of Peter the Great, who conferred on him the title of prince, and
+severely punished those who accused him of conspiring with the enemies
+of Russia. Having the fullest confidence in his good faith, Peter
+banished or executed his foes as liars and traitors. Yet they seem to
+have been the true men and Mazeppa the traitor, for at length, when
+sixty-four years of age, he threw off allegiance to Russia and became an
+ally of the Swedish enemies of the realm.
+
+The fiery and ungovernable temper of Peter is said to have been the
+cause of this. The story goes that one day, when Mazeppa was visiting
+the Russian court, and was at table with the czar, Peter complained to
+him of the lawless character of the Cossacks, and proposed that Mazeppa
+should seek to bring them under better control by a system of
+organization and discipline.
+
+The chief replied that such measures would never succeed. The Cossacks
+were so fierce and uncontrollable by nature, he said, and so fixed in
+their irregular habits of warfare, that it would be impossible to get
+them to submit to military discipline, and they must continue to fight
+in their old, wild way.
+
+These words were like fire to flax. Peter, who never could bear the
+least opposition to any of his plans or projects, and was accustomed to
+have everybody timidly agree with him, broke into a furious rage at this
+contradiction, and visited his sudden wrath on Mazeppa, as usual, in the
+most violent language. He was an enemy and a traitor, who deserved to be
+and should be impaled alive, roared the furious czar, not meaning a
+tithe of what he said, but saying enough to turn the high-spirited chief
+from a friend to a foe.
+
+Mazeppa left the czar's presence in deep offence, muttering the
+displeasure which it would have been death to speak openly, and bent on
+revenge. Soon after he entered into communication with Charles XII. of
+Sweden, the bitter enemy of Russia, which he was then invading. He
+suggested that the Swedish army should advance into Southern Russia,
+where the Cossacks would be sure to be sent to meet it. He would then go
+over with all his forces to the Swedish side, so strengthening it that
+the army of the czar could not stand against it. The King of Sweden
+might retain the territory won by his arms, while the Cossacks would
+retire to their own land, and become again, as of old, an independent
+tribe.
+
+The plot was well laid, but it failed through the loyalty of the
+Cossacks. They broke into wild indignation when Mazeppa unfolded to them
+his plan, most of them refusing to join in the revolt, and threatening
+to seize him and deliver him, bound hand and foot, to the czar. Some two
+thousand in all adhered to Mazeppa, and for a time it seemed as if a
+bloody battle would take place between the two sections of the tribe,
+but in the end the chief and his followers made their way to the Swedish
+camp, while the others marched back and put themselves under the command
+of the nearest Russian general.
+
+Mazeppa was now sentenced to death, and executed,--luckily for him, in
+effigy only. In person he was out of the reach of his foes. A wooden
+image was made to represent the culprit, and on this dumb block the
+penalties prescribed for him were inflicted. A pretty play--for a savage
+horde--they made of it. The image was dressed to imitate Mazeppa, while
+representations of the medals, ribbons, and other decorations he usually
+wore were placed upon it. It was then brought out before the general and
+leading officers, the soldiers being drawn up in a square around it. A
+herald now read the sentence of condemnation, and the mock execution
+began. First Mazeppa's patent of knighthood was torn to pieces and the
+fragments flung into the air. Then the medals and decorations were rent
+from the image and trampled underfoot. Finally the image itself was
+struck a blow that toppled it over into the dust. The hangman now took
+it in hand, tied a rope round its neck, and dragged it to a gibbet, on
+which it was hung. The affair ended in the Cossacks choosing a new
+chief.
+
+The remainder of Mazeppa's story may soon be told. The battle of
+Pultowa, fought, it is said, by his advice, ended the military career of
+the great Swedish general. The Cossack chief made his escape, with the
+King of Sweden, into Turkish territory, and the reward which the czar
+offered for his body, dead or alive, was never claimed. Mentchikof took
+what revenge he could by capturing and sacking his capital city,
+Baturin, while throughout Russia his name was anathematized from the
+pulpit. Traitor in his old days, and a fugitive in a foreign land, the
+disgrace of his action seemed to weigh heavily upon the mind of the old
+chief of the Ukraine, and in the following year he put an end to the
+wretchedness of his life by poison.
+
+
+
+
+_A WINDOW OPEN TO EUROPE._
+
+
+Peter the Great hated Moscow. It was to him the embodiment of that old
+Russia which he was seeking to reform out of existence. Had he been able
+to work his own will in all things, he would never have set foot within
+its walls; but circumstances are stronger than men, even though the
+latter be Russian czars. In one respect Peter set himself against
+circumstance, and built Russia a capital in a locality seemingly lacking
+in all natural adaptation for a city.
+
+In the early days of the eighteenth century his armies captured a small
+Swedish fort on Lake Ladoga near the river Neva. The locality pleased
+him, and he determined to build on the Neva a city which should serve
+Russia as a naval station and commercial port in the north. Why he
+selected this spot it is not easy to say. Better localities for his
+purpose might have been easily chosen. There was old Novgorod, a centre
+of commerce during many centuries of the past, which it would have been
+a noble tribute to ancient Russian history to revive. There was Riga, a
+city better situated for the Baltic commerce. But Peter would have none
+of these; he wanted a city of his own, one that should carry his name
+down through the ages, that should rival the Alexandria of Alexander the
+Great, and he chose for it a most inauspicious and inhospitable site.
+
+The Neva, a short but deep and wide stream, which carries to the sea
+the waters of the great lakes Ladoga, Onega, and Ilmen, breaks up near
+its mouth and makes its way into the Gulf of Finland through numerous
+channels, between which lie a series of islands. These then bore Finnish
+names equivalent to Island of Hares, Island of Buffaloes, and the like.
+Overgrown with thickets, their surfaces marshy, liable to annual
+overflow, inhabited only by a few Finnish fishermen, who fled from their
+huts to the mainland when the waters rose, they were far from promising;
+yet these islands took Peter's fancy as a suitable site for a commercial
+port, and with his usual impetuosity he plunged into the business of
+making a city to order.
+
+[Illustration: ST. PETERSBURG HARBOR, NEVA RIVER.]
+
+In truth, he fell in love with the spot, though what he saw in it to
+admire is not so clear. In summer mud ruled there supreme: the very name
+Neva is Finnish for "mud." During four months of the year ice took the
+place of mud, and the islands and stream were fettered fast. The country
+surrounding was largely a desert, its barren plains alternating with
+forests whose only inhabitants were wolves. Years after the city was
+built, wolves prowled into its streets and devoured two sentries in
+front of one of the government buildings. Moscow lay four hundred miles
+away, and the country between was bleak and almost uninhabited. Even
+to-day the traveller on leaving St. Petersburg finds himself in a
+desert. The great plain over which he passes spreads away in every
+direction, not a steeple, not a tree, not a man or beast, visible upon
+its bare expanse. There is no pasturage nor farming land. Fruits and
+vegetables can scarcely be grown; corn must be brought from a distance.
+Rye is an article of garden culture in St. Petersburg, cabbages and
+turnips are its only vegetables, and a beehive there is a curiosity.
+
+Yet, as has been said, Peter was attracted to the place, which in one of
+his letters he called his "paradise." It may have reminded him of
+Holland, the scene of his nautical education. The locality had a certain
+sacredness in Russian tradition, being looked upon as the most ancient
+Russian ground. By the mouth of the Neva had passed Rurik and his
+fellows in their journeys across the Varangian sea,--_their own sea_.
+The czar was willing to restore to Sweden all his conquests in Livonia
+and Esthonia, but the Neva he would not yield. From boyhood he had
+dreamed of giving Russia a navy and opening it up to the world's
+commerce, and here was a ready opening to the waters of the Baltic and
+the distant Atlantic.
+
+St. Petersburg owed its origin to a whim; but it was the whim of a man
+whose will swayed the movements of millions. He was not even willing to
+begin his work on the high ground of the mainland, but chose the Island
+of Hares, the nearest of the islands to the gulf. It was a seaport, not
+a capital, that he at first had in view. Legend tells us that he
+snatched a halberd from one of his soldiers, cut with it two strips of
+turf, and laid them crosswise, saying, "Here there shall be a town."
+Then, dropping the halberd, he seized a spade and began the first
+embankment. As he dug, an eagle appeared and hovered above his head.
+Shot by one of the men, it fluttered to his feet. Picking up the wounded
+bird, he set out in a boat to explore the waters around. To this event
+is given the date of May 16, 1703.
+
+The city began in a fortress, for the building of which carpenters and
+masons were brought from distant towns. The soldiers served as laborers.
+In this labor tools were notable chiefly for their absence. Wheelbarrows
+were unknown; they are still but little used in Russia. Spades and
+baskets were equally lacking, and the czar's impatience could not wait
+for them to be procured. The men scraped up the earth with their hands
+or with sticks and carried it in the skirts of their caftans to the
+ramparts. The czar sent orders to Moscow that two thousand of the
+thieves and outlaws destined for Siberia should be despatched the next
+summer to the Neva.
+
+The fort was at first built of wood, which was replaced by stone some
+years afterwards. Logs served for all other structures, for no stone was
+to be had. Afterwards every boat coming to the town was required to
+bring a certain number of stones, and, to attract masons to the new
+city, the building of stone houses in Moscow or elsewhere was forbidden.
+As for the fortress, which was erected at no small cost in life and
+money, it soon became useless, and to-day it only protects the mint and
+cathedral of St. Petersburg.
+
+The new city, named Petersburg from its founder, has long been known as
+St. Petersburg. While the fort was in process of erection a church was
+also built, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. The site of this wooden
+edifice is now occupied by the cathedral, begun in 1714, ten years
+later. As regarded a home for himself, Peter was easily satisfied. A hut
+of logs--his palace he called it--was built near the fortress,
+fifty-five feet long by twenty-five wide, and containing but three
+rooms. At a later date, to preserve this his first place of residence in
+his new city, he enclosed it within another building. Thus it still
+remains, a place of pilgrimage for devout Russians. It contains many
+relics of the great czar. His bedroom is now a chapel.
+
+Such a city, in such a situation, should have taken years to build.
+Peter wished to have it done in months, and he pushed the labor with
+little regard for its cost in life and treasure. Men were brought from
+all sections of Russia and put to work. Disease broke out among them,
+engendered by the dampness of the soil; but the work went on. Floods
+came and covered the island, drowning some of the sick in their beds;
+but there was no alleviation. History tells us that Swedish prisoners
+were employed, and that they died by thousands. Death, in Peter's eyes,
+was only an unpleasant incident, and new workmen were brought in
+multitudes, many of them to perish in their turn. It has been said that
+the building of the city cost two hundred thousand lives. This is, no
+doubt, an exaggeration, but it indicates a frightful mortality. But the
+feverish impatience of the czar told in results, and by 1714 the city
+possessed over thirty-four thousand buildings, with inhabitants in
+proportion.
+
+The floods came and played their part in the work of death. In that of
+1706, Peter measured water twenty-one inches deep on the floor of his
+hut. He thought it "extremely amusing" as men, women, and children were
+swept past his windows on floating wreckage down the stream. What the
+people themselves thought of it history does not say.
+
+[Illustration: SLEIGHING IN RUSSIA.]
+
+As yet Peter had no design of making St. Petersburg the capital of his
+empire. That conception seems not to have come to him until after the
+crushing defeat of the Swedish monarch Charles XII. at the battle of
+Pultowa. And indeed it was not until 1817 that it was made the capital.
+It was the fifth Russian capital, its predecessors in that honor having
+been Novgorod, Kief, Vladimir, and Moscow.
+
+To add a commercial quarter to the new city, Peter chose the island of
+Vasily Ostrof,--the Finnish "Island of Buffaloes,"--where a town was
+laid out in the Dutch fashion, with canals for streets. This island is
+still the business centre of the city, though the canals have long since
+disappeared. The streets of St. Petersburg for many years continued
+unpaved, notwithstanding the marshy character of the soil, and in the
+early days boats replaced carriages for travel and traffic.
+
+The work of building the new capital was not confined to the czar. The
+nobles were obliged to build palaces in it,--very much to their chagrin.
+They hated St. Petersburg as cordially as Peter hated Moscow. They
+already had large and elegant mansions in the latter city, and had
+little relish for building new ones in this desert capital, four hundred
+miles to the north. But the word of the czar was law, and none dared say
+him nay. Every proprietor whose estate held five hundred serfs was
+ordered to build a stone house of two stories in the new city. Those of
+greater wealth had to build more pretentious edifices. Peter's own taste
+in architecture was not good. He loved low and small rooms. None of his
+palaces were fine buildings. In building the Winter Palace, whose
+stories were made high enough to conform to others on the street, he had
+double ceilings put in his special rooms, so as to reduce their height.
+
+The city under way, the question of its defence became prominent. The
+Swedes, the mortal enemies of the czar, looked with little favor on this
+new project, and their prowling vessels in the gulf seemed to threaten
+it with attack. Peter made vigorous efforts to prepare for defence.
+Ship-building went on briskly on the Svir River, between Lakes Ladoga
+and Onega, and the vessels were got down as quickly as possible into the
+Neva. Peter himself explored and measured the depth of water in the Gulf
+of Finland. Here, some twenty miles from the city, lay the island of
+Cronslot, seven miles long, and in the narrowest part of the gulf. The
+northern channel past this island proved too shallow to be a source of
+danger. The southern channel was navigable, and this the czar determined
+to fortify.
+
+A fort was begun in the water near the island's shores, stone being sunk
+for its foundation. Work on it was pressed with the greatest energy, for
+fear of an attack by the Swedish fleet, and it was completed before the
+winter's end. With the idea of making this his commercial port, Peter
+had many stone warehouses built on the island, most of which soon fell
+into decay for want of use. But to-day Cronstadt, as the new town and
+fortress were called, is the greatest naval station and one of the most
+flourishing commercial cities in Russia, while its fortifications
+protect the capital from dangers of assault.
+
+In those early days, however, St. Petersburg was designed to be the
+centre of commerce, and Peter took what means he could to entice
+merchant vessels to his new city. The first to appear--coming almost by
+accident--was of Dutch build. It arrived in November, 1703, and Peter
+himself served as pilot to bring it up to the town. Great was the
+astonishment of the skipper, on being afterwards presented to the czar,
+to recognize in him his late pilot. And Peter's delight was equally
+great on learning that the ship had been freighted by Cornelis Calf, one
+of his old Zaandam friends. The skipper was feasted to his heart's
+content and presented with five hundred ducats, while each sailor
+received thirty thalers, and the ship was renamed the St. Petersburg.
+Two other ships appeared the same year, one Dutch and one English, and
+their skippers and crews received the same reward. These pioneer vessels
+were exempted forever from all tolls and dues at that port.
+
+St. Petersburg, as it exists to-day, bears very little resemblance to
+the city of Peter's plan. To his successors are due the splendid granite
+quays, which aid in keeping out the overflowing stream, the rows of
+palaces, the noble churches and public buildings, the statues, columns,
+and other triumphs of architecture which abundantly adorn the great
+modern capital. The marshy island soil has been lifted by two centuries
+of accretions, while the main city has crept up from its old location to
+the mainland, where the fashionable quarters and the government offices
+now stand.
+
+St. Petersburg is still exposed to yearly peril by overflow. The violent
+autumnal storms, driving the waters of the gulf into the channel of the
+stream, back up terrible floods. The spring-time rise in the lakes which
+feed the Neva threatens similar disaster. In 1721 Peter himself narrowly
+escaped drowning in the Nevski Prospect, now the finest street in
+Europe.
+
+Of the floods that have desolated the city, the greatest was that of
+November, 1824. Driven into the river's mouth by a furious southwest
+storm, the waters of the gulf were heaped up to the first stories of the
+houses even in the highest streets. Horses and carriages were swept
+away; bridges were torn loose and floated off; numbers of houses were
+moved from their foundations; a full regiment of carbineers, who had
+taken refuge on the roof of their barracks, perished in the furious
+torrent. At Cronstadt the waters rose so high that a hundred-gun ship
+was left stranded in the market-place. The czar, who had just returned
+from a long journey to the east, found himself made captive in his own
+palace. Standing on the balcony which looks up the Neva, surrounded by
+his weeping family, he saw with deep dismay wrecks of every kind,
+bridges and merchandise, horses and cattle, and houses peopled with
+helpless inmates, swept before his eyes by the raging flood. Boats were
+overturned and emptied their crews into the stream. Some who escaped
+death by drowning died from the bitter cold as they floated downward on
+vessels or rafts. It seemed almost as if the whole city would be carried
+bodily into the gulf.
+
+The official reports of this disaster state that forty-five hundred of
+the people perished,--probably not half the true figure. Of the houses
+that remained, many were ruined, and thousands of poor wretches wandered
+homeless through the drenched streets. Such was one example of the
+inheritance left by Peter the Great to the dwellers in his favorite
+city, his "window to Europe," as it has been called.
+
+
+
+
+_FROM THE HOVEL TO THE THRONE._
+
+
+The reign of Peter the Great was signalized by two notable instances of
+the rise of persons from the lowest to the highest estate, ability being
+placed above birth and talent preferred to noble descent. A poor boy,
+Mentchikof by name, son of a monastery laborer, had made his way to
+Moscow and there found employment with a pastry-cook, who sent him out
+daily with a basket of mince pies, which he was to sell in the streets.
+The boy was destitute of education, but he had inherited a musical voice
+and a lively manner, which stood him in good stead in proclaiming the
+merits of his wares. He could sing a ballad in taking style, and became
+so widely known for his songs and stories that he was often invited into
+gentlemen's houses to entertain company. His voice and his wit ended in
+making him a prince of the empire, a favorite of the czar, and in the
+end virtually the emperor of Russia.
+
+Being one day in the kitchen of a boyar's house, where dinner was being
+prepared for the czar, who had promised to dine there that day, young
+Mentchikof overheard the master of the house give special directions to
+his cook about a dish of meat of which he said the czar was especially
+fond, and noticed that he furtively dropped a powder of some kind into
+it, as if by way of spice.
+
+This act seemed suspicious to the acute lad. Noting particularly the
+composition of the dish, he betook himself to the street, where he began
+again to exalt the merits of his pies and to entertain the passers-by
+with ballads. He kept in the vicinity of the boyar's house until the
+czar arrived, when he raised his voice to its highest pitch and began to
+sing vociferously. The czar, attracted by the boy's voice and amused by
+his manner, called him up, and asked him if he would sell his stock in
+trade, basket and all.
+
+"I have orders only to sell the pies," replied the shrewd vender: "I
+cannot sell the basket without asking my master's leave. But, as
+everything in Russia belongs to your majesty, you have only to lay on me
+your commands."
+
+This answer so greatly pleased the czar that he bade the boy come with
+him into the house and wait on him at table, much to the young
+pie-vender's joy, as it was just the result for which he had hoped. The
+dinner went on, Mentchikof waiting on the czar with such skill as he
+could command, and watching eagerly for the approach of the suspected
+dish. At length it was brought in and placed on the table before the
+czar. The boy thereupon leaned forward and whispered in the monarch's
+ear, begging him not to eat of that dish.
+
+Surprised at this request, and quick to suspect something wrong, the
+czar rose and walked into an adjoining room, bidding the boy accompany
+him.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked. "Why should I not eat of that particular
+dish?"
+
+"Because I am afraid it is not all right," answered the boy. "I was in
+the kitchen while it was being prepared, and saw the boyar, when the
+cook's back was turned, drop a powder into the dish. I do not know what
+all this meant, but thought it my duty to put your majesty on your
+guard."
+
+"Thanks for your shrewdness, my lad," said the czar; "I will bear it in
+mind."
+
+Peter returned to the table with his wonted cheerfulness of countenance,
+giving no indication that he had heard anything unusual.
+
+"I should like your majesty to try that dish," said the boyar: "I fancy
+that you will find it very good."
+
+"Come sit here beside me," suggested Peter. It was the custom at that
+time in Moscow for the master of a house to wait on the table when he
+entertained guests.
+
+Peter put some of the questionable dish on a plate and placed it before
+his host.
+
+"No doubt it is good," he said. "Try some of it yourself and set me an
+example."
+
+This request threw the host into a state of the utmost confusion, and
+with trembling utterance he replied that it was not becoming for a
+servant to eat with his master.
+
+"It is becoming to a dog, if I wish it," answered Peter, and he set the
+plate on the floor before a dog which was in the room.
+
+In a moment the brute had emptied the dish. But in a short time the
+poor animal was seen to be in convulsions, and it soon fell dead before
+the assembled company.
+
+"Is this the dish you recommended so highly?" said Peter, fixing a
+terrible look on the shrinking boyar. "So I was to take the place of
+that dead dog?"
+
+Orders were given to have the animal opened and examined, and the result
+of the investigation proved beyond doubt that its death was due to
+poison. The culprit, however, escaped the terrible punishment which he
+would have suffered at Peter's hands by taking his own life. He was
+found dead in bed the next morning.
+
+We do not vouch for the truth of this interesting story. Though told by
+a writer of Peter's time, it is doubted by late historians. But such is
+the fate of the best stories afloat, and the voice of doubt threatens to
+rob history of much of its romance. The story of Mentchikof, in its most
+usual shape, states that Le Fort, general and admiral, was the first to
+be attracted to the sprightly boy, and that Peter saw him at Le Fort's
+house, was delighted with him, and made him his page.
+
+The pastry-cook's boy soon became the indispensable companion of the
+czar, assisted him in his workshop, attended him in his wars, and at the
+siege of Azov displayed the greatest bravery. He accompanied Peter in
+his travels, worked with him in Holland, and distinguished himself in
+the wars with the Swedes, receiving the order of St. Andrew for
+gallantry at the battle of the Neva. In 1704 he was given the rank of
+general, and was the first to defeat the Swedes in a pitched battle. At
+the czar's request he was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+As Prince Mentchikof the new grandee loomed high. His house in Moscow
+was magnificent, his banquets were gorgeous with gold and silver plate,
+and the ambassadors of the powers of Europe figured among his guests.
+Such was the bright side of the picture. The dark side was one of
+extortion and robbery, in which the favorite of the czar out-did in
+peculation all the other officials of the realm.
+
+Peculation in Russia, indeed, assumed enormous proportions, but this was
+a crime towards which Peter did not manifest his usual severity. Two of
+the robbers in high places were executed, but the others were let off
+with fines and a castigation with Peter's walking-stick, which he was in
+the habit of using freely on high and low alike. As for Mentchikof, he
+was incorrigible. So high was he in favor with his master that the
+senators, who had abundant proofs of his robberies and little love for
+him personally, dared not openly accuse him before the czar. The most
+they ventured to do was to draw up a statement of his peculations and
+lay the paper on the table at the czar's seat. Peter saw it, ran his eye
+over its contents, but said nothing. Day after day the paper lay in the
+same place, but the czar continued silent. One day as he sat in the
+senate, the senator Tolstoi, who sat beside him, was bold enough to ask
+him what he thought of that document.
+
+"Nothing," Peter replied, "but that Mentchikof will always be
+Mentchikof."
+
+The death of Peter placed the favorite in a precarious position. He had
+a host of enemies, who would have rejoiced in his downfall. These, who
+formed what may be called the Old Russian party, wished to proclaim as
+monarch the grandson of the deceased czar. But Mentchikof and the party
+of reform were beforehand with them, and gave the throne to Catharine,
+the widow of the late monarch. Under her the pastry-cook's boy rose to
+the summit of his power and virtually governed the country. Unluckily
+for the favorite, Catharine died in two years, and a new czar, Peter
+II., grandson of Peter the Great, came to the throne.
+
+Mentchikof had been left guardian of the youthful czar, to whom his
+daughter was betrothed, and whom he took to his house and surrounded
+with his creatures. And now for a time the favorite soared higher than
+ever, was practically lord of the land, and made himself more feared
+than had been Peter himself.
+
+But he had reached the verge of a precipice. There was no love between
+the young czar and Mary Mentchikof, and the youthful prince was soon
+brought to dislike his guardian. Events moved fast. Peter left
+Mentchikof's house and sought the summer palace, to which his guardian
+was refused admittance. Soon after he was arrested, the shock of the
+disgrace bringing on an apoplectic stroke. In vain he appealed to the
+emperor; he was ordered to retire to his estate, and soon after was
+banished, with his whole family, to Siberia. This was in 1727. The
+disgraced favorite survived his exile but two years, dying of apoplexy
+in 1729. Four months afterwards the new czar followed in death the man
+he had disgraced.
+
+The other instance of a rise from low to high estate was that of the
+empress herself, whose career was very closely related to that of
+Mentchikof. There are various instances in history of a woman of low
+estate being chosen to share a monarch's throne, but only one, that of
+Catharine of Russia, in which a poor stranger, taken from among the
+ruins of a plundered town, became eventually the absolute sovereign of
+that empire into which she had been carried as captive or slave.
+
+It was in 1702, during the sharply contested war between Russia and
+Sweden, that, while Charles XII. of Sweden was making conquests in
+Poland, the Russian army was having similar success in Livonia and
+Ingria. Among the Russian successes was the capture of a small town
+named Marienburg, which surrendered at discretion, but whose magazines
+were blown up by the Swedes. This behavior so provoked the Russian
+general that he gave orders for the town to be destroyed and all its
+inhabitants to be carried off.
+
+Among the prisoners was a girl, Catharine by name, a native of Livonia,
+who had been left an orphan at the age of three years, and had been
+brought up as a servant in the family of M. Gluck, the minister of the
+place. Such was the humble origin of the woman who was to become the
+wife of Peter the Great, and afterwards Catharine I., Empress of Russia.
+
+In 1702 Catharine, then seventeen years of age, married a Swedish
+dragoon, one of the garrison of Marienburg. Her married life was a short
+one, her husband being obliged to leave her in two days to join his
+regiment. She never saw him again. She could neither read nor write,
+and, like Mentchikof, never learned those arts. She was, however,
+handsome and attractive, delicate and well formed, and of a most
+excellent temper, being never known to be out of humor, while she was
+obliging and civil to all, and after her exaltation took good care of
+the family of her benefactor Gluck. As for her first husband, she sent
+him sums of money until 1705, when he was killed in battle.
+
+It was a common fate of prisoners of war then to be sold as slaves to
+the Turks, but the beauty of Catharine saved her from this. After some
+vicissitudes, she fell into the hands of Mentchikof, at whose quarters
+she was seen by the czar. Struck by her beauty and good sense, Peter
+took her to his palace, where, finding in her a warm appreciation of his
+plans of reform and an admirable disposition, he made her his own by a
+private marriage. In 1711 this was supplemented by a public wedding.
+
+Catharine was soon able amply to reward the czar for the honor he had
+conferred upon her. He was at war with the Turks, and, through a foolish
+contempt for their generalship and military skill, allowed himself to
+fall into a trap from which there seemed no escape. He found himself
+completely surrounded by the enemy and cut off from all supplies, and
+it seemed as if he would be forced to surrender with his whole force to
+the despised foe.
+
+From this dilemma Catharine, who was in the camp, relieved him.
+Collecting a large sum of money and presents of jewelry, and seeking the
+camp of the enemy, she succeeded in bribing the Turkish general, or in
+some way inducing him to conclude peace and suffer the Russian army to
+escape. Peter repaid his able wife by conferring upon her the dignity of
+empress.
+
+The death of the czar was followed, as we have said, by the elevation of
+his wife to the vacant throne, principally through the aid of
+Mentchikof, her former lord and master, aided by the effect of her
+seemingly inconsolable grief and the judicious distribution of money and
+jewels as presents.
+
+For two years Catharine and Mentchikof, whose life had begun in the
+hovel, and who were now virtually together on the throne, were the
+unquestioned autocrats of Russia. Catharine had no genius for
+government, and left the control of affairs to her minister, who was to
+all intents and purposes sovereign of Russia. The empress, meanwhile,
+passed her days in vice and dissipation, thereby hastening her end. She
+died in 1727, at the age of about forty years. In the same year, as
+already stated, the man who had grown great with her fell from his high
+estate.
+
+
+
+
+_BUFFOONERIES OF THE RUSSIAN COURT._
+
+
+Amid the serious matters which present themselves so abundantly in the
+history of Russia, buffooneries of the coarsest character at times find
+place. Numerous examples of this might be drawn from the reign of Peter
+the Great, whose idea of humor was broad burlesque, and who, despite the
+religious prejudices of the people, did not hesitate to make the church
+the subject of his jests. One of the broadest of these farces was that
+known as the Conclave, the purpose of which was to burlesque or treat
+with contumely the method of selecting the head of the Roman Catholic
+Church.
+
+At the court of the czar was an old man named Sotof, a drunkard of
+inimitable powers of imbibition, and long a butt for the jests of the
+court. He had taught the czar to write, a service which he deemed worthy
+of being rewarded by the highest dignities of the empire.
+
+Peter, who dearly loved a practical joke, learning the aspirations of
+the old sot, promised to confer on him the most eminent office in the
+world, and accordingly appointed him _Kniaz Papa_ that is, prince-pope,
+with a salary of two thousand roubles and a palace at St. Petersburg.
+The exaltation of Sotof to this dignity was solemnized by a performance
+more gross than ludicrous. Buffoons were chosen to lift the new
+dignitary to his throne, and four fellows who stammered with every word
+delivered absurd addresses upon his exaltation. The mock pope then
+created a number of cardinals, at whose head he rode through the streets
+in procession, his seat of state being a cask of brandy which was
+carried on a sledge drawn by four oxen.
+
+The cardinals followed, and after them came sledges laden with food and
+drink, while the music of the procession consisted of a hideous turmoil
+of drums, trumpets, horns, fiddles, and hautboys, all playing out of
+time, mingled with the ear-splitting clatter of pots and pans vigorously
+beaten by a troop of cooks and scullions. Next came a number of men
+dressed as Roman Catholic monks, each carrying a bottle and a glass. In
+the rear of the procession marched the czar and his courtiers, Peter
+dressed as a Dutch skipper, the others wearing various comic disguises.
+
+The place fixed for the conclave being reached, the cardinals were led
+into a long gallery, along which had been built a range of closets. In
+each of these a cardinal was shut up, abundantly provided with food and
+drink. To each of the cardinals two conclavists were attached, whose
+duty it was to ply them with brandy, carry insulting messages from one
+to another, and induce them, as they grew tipsy, to bawl out all sorts
+of abuse of one another. To all this ribaldry the czar listened with
+delight, taking note at the same time of anything said of which he might
+make future use against the participants.
+
+This orgy lasted three days and three nights, the cardinals not being
+released until they had agreed upon answers to a number of ridiculous
+questions propounded to them by the Kniaz Papa. Then the doors were
+flung open, and the pope and his cardinals were drawn home at mid-day
+dead drunk on sledges,--that is, such of them as survived, for some had
+actually drunk themselves to death, while others never recovered from
+the effect of their debauch.
+
+This offensive absurdity appealed so strongly to the czar's idea of
+humor that he had it three times repeated, it growing more gross and
+shameless on each successive occasion; and during the last conclave
+Peter indulged in such excesses that his death was hastened by their
+effects.
+
+As for the national church of Russia, Peter treated it with contemptuous
+indifference. The office of patriarch becoming vacant, he left it
+unfilled for twenty-one years, and finally, on being implored by a
+delegation from the clergy to appoint a patriarch, he started up in a
+furious passion, struck his breast with his fist and the table with his
+cutlass, and roared out, "Here, here is your patriarch!" He then stamped
+angrily from the room, leaving the prelates in a state of utter dismay.
+
+Soon after he took occasion to make the church the subject of a second
+coarse jest. Another buffoon of the court, Buturlin by name, was
+appointed Kniaz Papa, and a marriage arranged between him and the widow
+of Sotof, his predecessor. The bridegroom was eighty-four years of age,
+the bride nearly as old. Some decrepit old men were chosen to play the
+part of bridesmaids, four stutterers invited the wedding guests, while
+four of the most corpulent fellows who could be found attended the
+procession as running footmen. A sledge drawn by bears held the
+orchestra, their music being accompanied with roars from the animals,
+which were goaded with iron spikes. The nuptial benediction was given in
+the cathedral by a blind and deaf priest, who wore huge spectacles. The
+marriage, the wedding feast, and the remaining ceremonies were all
+conducted in the same spirit of broad burlesque, in which one of the
+sacred ceremonies of the Russian Church was grossly paraphrased.
+
+Peter did not confine himself to coarse jests in his efforts to
+discredit the clergy. He took every occasion to unmask the trickery of
+the priests. Petersburg, the new city he was building, was an object of
+abhorrence to these superstitious worthies, who denounced it as one of
+the gates of hell, prophesying that it would be overthrown by the wrath
+of heaven, and fixing the date on which this was to occur. So great was
+the fear inspired by their prophecies that work was suspended in spite
+of the orders of the terrible czar.
+
+To impress the people with the imminency of the peril, the priests
+displayed a sacred image from whose eyes flowed miraculous tears. It
+seemed to weep over the coming fate of the dwellers within the doomed
+city.
+
+"Its hour is at hand," said the priests; "it will soon be swallowed up,
+with all its inhabitants, by a tremendous inundation."
+
+When word of this seeming miracle and of the consternation which it had
+produced was brought to the czar, he hastened with his usual impetuosity
+to the spot, bent on exposing the dangerous fraud which his enemies were
+perpetrating. He found the weeping image surrounded by a multitude of
+superstitious citizens, who gazed with open-eyed wonder and reverence on
+the miraculous feat.
+
+Their horror was intense when Peter boldly approached and examined the
+image. Petrified with terror, they looked to see him stricken dead by a
+bolt from heaven. But their feelings changed when the czar, breaking
+open the head of the image, explained to them the ingenious trick which
+the priests had devised. The head was found to contain a reservoir of
+congealed oil, which, as it was melted by the heat of lighted tapers
+beneath, flowed out drop by drop through artfully provided holes, and
+ran from the eyes like tears. On seeing this the dismay of the people
+turned to anger against the priests, and the building of the city went
+on.
+
+The court fool was an institution born in barbarism, though it survived
+long into the age of civilization, having its latest survival in Russia,
+the last European state to emerge from barbarism. In the days of Peter
+the Great the fool was a fixed institution in Russia, though this
+element of court life had long vanished from Western Europe. In truth,
+the buffoon flourished in Russia like a green bay-tree. Peter was never
+satisfied with less than a dozen of these fun-making worthies, and a
+private family which could not afford at least one hired fool was
+thought to be in very straitened circumstances.
+
+In the reign of the empress Anne the number of court buffoons was
+reduced to six, but three of the six were men of the highest birth. They
+had been degraded to this office for some fault, and if they refused to
+perform such fooleries as the queen and her courtiers desired they were
+whipped with rods.
+
+Among those who suffered this indignity was no less a grandee than
+Prince Galitzin. He had changed his religion, and for this offence he
+was made court page, though he was over forty years of age, and buffoon,
+though his son was a lieutenant in the army, and his family one of the
+first in the realm. His name is here given in particular as he was made
+the subject of a cruel jest, which could have been perpetrated nowhere
+but in the Russian court at that period.
+
+The winter of 1740, in which this event took place, was of unusual
+severity. Prince Galitzin's wife having died, the empress forced him to
+marry a girl of the lowest birth, agreeing to defray the cost of the
+wedding, which proved to be by no means small.
+
+As a preliminary a house was built wholly of ice, and all its furniture,
+tables, seats, ornaments, and even the nuptial bedstead, were made of
+the same frigid material. In front of the house were placed four cannons
+and two mortars of ice, so solid in construction that they were fired
+several times without bursting. To make up the wedding procession
+persons of all the nations subject to Russia, and of both sexes, were
+brought from the several provinces, dressed in their national costumes.
+
+The procession was an extraordinary one. The new-married couple rode on
+the back of an elephant, in a huge cage. Of those that followed some
+were mounted on camels, some rode in sledges drawn by various beasts,
+such as reindeer, oxen, dogs, goats, and hogs. The train, which all
+Moscow turned out to witness, embraced more than three hundred persons,
+and made its way past the palace of the empress and through all the
+principal streets of the city.
+
+The wedding dinner was given in Biren's riding-house, which was
+appropriately decorated, and in which each group of the guests were
+supplied with food cooked after the manner of their own country. A ball
+followed, in which the people of each nation danced their national
+dances to their national music. The pith of the joke, in the Russian
+appreciation of that day, came at the end, the bride and groom being
+conducted to a bed of ice in an icy palace, in which they were forced to
+spend the night, guards being stationed at the door to prevent their
+getting out before morning.
+
+Though not so gross as Peter's nuptial jests, this was more cruel, and,
+in view of the social station of the groom, a far greater indignity.
+
+A Russian state dinner during the reign of Peter the Great, as described
+by Dr. Birch, speaking from personal observation, was one in which only
+those of the strongest stomach could safely take part. On such
+occasions, indeed, the experienced ate their dinners beforehand at
+home, knowing well what to expect at the czar's table. Ceremony was
+absolutely lacking, and, as two or three hundred persons were usually
+invited to a feast set for a hundred, a most undignified scuffling for
+seats took place, each holder of a chair being forced to struggle with
+those who sought to snatch it from him. In this turmoil distinguished
+foreigners had to fight like the natives for their seats.
+
+Finally they took their places without regard to dignity or station.
+"Carpenters and shipwrights sit next to the czar; but senators,
+ministers, generals, priests, sailors, buffoons of all kinds, sit
+pell-mell, without any distinction." And they were crowded so closely
+that it was with great difficulty they could lift their hands to their
+mouths. As for foreigners, if they happened to sit between Russians,
+they were little likely to have any appetite to eat. All this Peter
+encouraged, on the plea that ceremony would produce uneasiness and
+stiffness.
+
+There was usually but one napkin for two or three guests, which they
+fought for as they had for seats; while each person had but one plate
+during dinner, "so if some Russian does not care to mix the sauces of
+the different dishes together, he pours the soup that is left in his
+plate either into the dish or into his neighbor's plate, or even under
+the table, after which he licks his plate clean with his finger, and,
+last of all, wipes it with the table-cloth."
+
+Liquids seem to have played as important a part as solids at these
+meals, each guest being obliged to begin with a cup of brandy, after
+which great glasses of wine were served, "and betweenwhiles a bumper of
+the strongest English beer, by which mixture of liquors every one of the
+guests is fuddled before the soup is served up." And this was not
+confined to the men, the women being obliged to take their share in the
+liberal potations. As for the music that played in the adjoining room,
+it was utterly drowned in the noise around the table, the uproar being
+occasionally increased by a fighting-bout between two drunken guests,
+which the czar, instead of stopping, witnessed with glee.
+
+We may close with a final quotation from Dr. Birch. "At great
+entertainments it frequently happens that nobody is allowed to go out of
+the room from noon till midnight; hence it is easy to imagine what
+pickle a room must be in that is full of people who drink like beasts,
+and none of whom escape being dead drunk.
+
+"They often tie eight or ten young mice in a string, and hide them under
+green peas, or in such soups as the Russians have the greatest appetites
+to, which sets them a kicking and vomiting in a most beastly manner when
+they come to the bottom and discover the trick. They often bake cats,
+wolves, ravens, and the like in their pastries, and when the company
+have eaten them up, they tell them what they have in their stomachs.
+
+"The present butler is one of the czar's buffoons, to whom he has given
+the name of _Wiaschi_, with this privilege, that if any one calls him by
+that name he has leave to drub him with his wooden sword. If, therefore,
+anybody, by the czar's setting them on, calls out _Wiaschi_, as the
+fellow does not know exactly who it is, he falls to beating them all
+around, beginning with prince Mentchikof and ending with the last of the
+company, without excepting even the ladies, whom he strips of their head
+clothes, as he does the old Russians of their wigs, which he tramples
+upon, on which occasion it is pleasant enough to see the variety of
+their bald pates."
+
+On reading this account of a Russian court entertainment two centuries
+ago, we cannot wonder that after the visit of Peter the Great and his
+suite to London it was suggested that the easiest way to cleanse the
+palace in which they had been entertained might be to set it on fire and
+burn it to the ground.
+
+
+
+
+_HOW A WOMAN DETHRONED A MAN._
+
+
+We have told how one Catharine, of lowly birth and the captive of a
+warlike raid, rose to be Empress of Russia. We have now to tell how a
+second of the same name rose to the same dignity. This one was indeed a
+princess by descent, her birthplace being a little German town. But if
+she began upon a higher level than the former Catharine, she reached a
+higher level still, this insignificant German princess becoming known in
+history as Catharine the Great, and having the high distinction of being
+the only woman to whose name the title Great has ever been attached. We
+may here say, however, that many women have lived to whom it might have
+been more properly applied.
+
+In 1744 this daughter of one of the innumerable German kinglings became
+Grand Duchess of Russia, through marriage with Peter, the coming heir to
+the throne. We may here step from the beaten track of our story to say
+that Russia, at this period of its history, was ruled over by a number
+of empresses, though at no other time have women occupied its throne.
+The line began with Sophia, sister of Peter the Great, who reigned for
+some years as virtual empress. Catharine, the wife of Peter, became
+actual empress, and was followed, with insignificant intervals of male
+rulers, by Anne, Elizabeth, and Catharine the Great. These male rulers
+were Peter II., whose reign was brief, Ivan, an infant, and Peter III.,
+husband of Catharine, who succeeded Elizabeth in 1762. It is with the
+last named that we are concerned.
+
+Peter III., though grandson of Peter the Great, was as weak a man as
+ever sat on a throne; Catharine a woman of unusual energy. For years of
+their married life these two had been enemies. Peter had the misfortune
+to have been born a fool, and folly on the throne is apt to make a sorry
+show. He had, besides, become a drunkard and profligate. The one good
+point about him, in the estimation of many, was his admiration for
+Frederick the Great, since he came to the throne of Russia at the crisis
+of Frederick's career, and saved him from utter ruin by withdrawing the
+Russian army from his opponents.
+
+His folly soon raised up against him two powerful enemies. One of these
+was the army, which did not object, after fighting with the Austrians
+against the Prussians, to turn and fight with the Prussians against the
+Austrians, but did object to the Prussian dress and discipline, which
+Peter insisted upon introducing. It possessed a discipline of its own,
+which it preferred to keep, and bitterly disliked its change of dress.
+The czar even spoke of suppressing the Guards, as his grandfather had
+suppressed the corps of the Strelitz. This was a fatal offence. It made
+this strong force his enemy, while he was utterly lacking in the
+resolution with which Peter the Great had handled rebels in arms.
+
+The other enemy was Catharine, whom he had deserted for an unworthy
+favorite. But her enmity was quiet, and might have remained so had he
+not added insult to injury. Heated by drink, he called her a "fool" at a
+public dinner before four hundred people, including the greatest
+dignitaries of the realm and the foreign ministers. He was not satisfied
+with an insult, but added to it the folly of a threat, that of an order
+for her arrest. This he withdrew,--a worse fault, under the
+circumstances, than to have made it. He had taught Catharine that her
+only safety lay in action, if she would not be removed from the throne
+in favor of the worthless creature who had supplanted her in her
+husband's esteem.
+
+Events moved rapidly. It was on the 21st of June, 1762, that the insult
+was given and the threat made. Within a month the czar was dead and his
+wife reigned in his stead. On the 24th Peter left St. Petersburg for
+Oranienbaum, his summer residence. He did not propose to remain there
+long. He had it in view to join his army and defeat the Danes, his
+present foes, with the less defined intention of gaining glory on some
+great battle-field at the side of his victorious ally Frederick the
+Great. The fleet with which Denmark was to be invaded was not ready to
+sail, many of the crew being sick; but this little difficulty did not
+deter the czar. He issued an imperial ukase ordering the sick sailors to
+get well.
+
+On going to his summer residence Peter had imprudently left Catharine at
+St. Petersburg, taking his mistress in her stead. On the 29th his wife
+received orders from him to go to Peterhof. Thither he meant to proceed
+before setting out on his campaign. His feast-day came on the 10th of
+July. On the morning of the 9th he set out with a large train of
+followers for the palace of Peterhof, where the next day Catharine was
+to give a grand dinner in his honor.
+
+It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Peterhof was reached. To the
+utter surprise of the czar, there were none but servants to meet him,
+and they in a state of mortal terror.
+
+"Where is the empress?" he demanded.
+
+"Gone."
+
+"Where?"
+
+No one could tell him. She had simply gone,--where and why he was soon
+to learn. As he waited and fumed, a peasant approached and handed him a
+letter, which proved to be from Bressau, his former French valet. It
+contained the astounding information that the empress had arrived in St.
+Petersburg that morning and had been proclaimed _sole and absolute
+sovereign of Russia_.
+
+The tale was beyond his powers of belief. Like a madman he rushed
+through the empty rooms, making them resound with vociferous demands for
+his wife; looked in every corner and cupboard; rushed wildly through the
+gardens, calling for Catharine again and again; while the crowd of
+frightened courtiers followed in his steps. It was in vain; no voice
+came in answer to his demand, no Catharine was to be found.
+
+The story of what had actually happened is none too well known. It has
+been told in more shapes than one. What we know is that there was a
+conspiracy to place Catharine on the throne, that the leaders of the
+troops had been tampered with, and that one of the conspirators, Captain
+Passek, had just been arrested by order of the czar. It was this arrest
+that precipitated the revolution. Fearing that all was discovered, the
+plotters took the only available means to save themselves.
+
+The arrest of Passek had nothing to do with the conspiracy. It was for
+quite another cause. But it proved to be an accident with great results,
+since the Orlofs, who were deep in the conspiracy, thought that their
+lives were in danger, and that safety lay only in prompt action. As a
+result, at five A.M.. on July 9, Alexis Orlof suddenly appeared at
+Peterhof, and demanded to see the empress at once.
+
+Catharine was fast asleep when the young officer hastily entered her
+room. He lost no time in waking her. She gazed on him with surprise and
+alarm.
+
+"It is time to get up," he said, in as calm a tone as if he had been
+announcing that breakfast was waiting. "Everything is ready for your
+proclamation."
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"Passek is arrested. You must come," he said, in the same tone.
+
+This was enough. A long perspective of peril lay behind those words. The
+empress arose, dressed in all haste, and sprang into the coach beside
+which Orlof awaited her. One of her women entered with her, Orlof seated
+himself in front, a groom sprang up behind, and off they set, at
+headlong speed, for St. Petersburg.
+
+The distance was nearly twenty miles, and the horses, which had already
+covered that distance, were in very poor condition for doubling it
+without rest. In his haste Orlof had not thought of ordering a relay.
+His carelessness might have cost them dear, since it was of vital moment
+to reach the city without delay. Fortunately, they met a peasant, and
+borrowed two horses from his cart. Those two horses perhaps won the
+throne for Catharine.
+
+[Illustration: A RUSSIAN DROSKY.]
+
+Five miles from the city they met two others of the conspirators,
+devoured with anxiety. Changing to the new coach, the party drove in at
+breakneck pace, and halted before the barracks of the Ismailofsky
+regiment, with which the conspirators had been at work.
+
+It was between six and seven o'clock in the morning. Only a dozen men
+were at the barracks. Nothing had been prepared. Excitement or terror
+had turned all heads. Yet now no time was lost. Drummers were roused and
+drums beaten. Out came soldiers in haste, half dressed and half asleep.
+
+"Shout 'Long live the empress!'" demanded the visitors.
+
+Without hesitation the guardsmen obeyed, their only thought at the
+moment being that of a free flow of _vodka_, the Russian drink. A priest
+was quickly brought, who, like the soldiers, was prepared to do as he
+was told. Raising the cross, he hastily offered them a form of oath, to
+which the soldiers subscribed. The first step was taken; the empress was
+proclaimed.
+
+The proclamation declared Catharine sole and absolute sovereign. It made
+no mention of her little son Paul, as some of the leaders in the
+conspiracy had proposed. The Orlofs controlled the situation, and the
+action of the Ismailofsky was soon sanctioned by other regiments of the
+guard. They hated the czar and were ripe for revolt.
+
+One regiment only, the Preobrajensky, that of which the czar himself was
+colonel, resisted. It was led against the other troops under the command
+of a captain and a major. The hostile bodies came face to face a few
+paces apart; the queen's party greatest in number, but in disorder, the
+czar's party drawn up with military skill. A moment, a word, might
+precipitate a bloody conflict.
+
+Suddenly a man in the ranks cried out, "_Oura!_ Long live the empress!"
+In an instant the whole regiment echoed the cry, the ranks were broken,
+the soldiers embraced their comrades in the other ranks, and, falling on
+their knees, begged pardon of the empress for their delay.
+
+And now the throng turned towards the neighboring church of Our Lady of
+Kasan, in which Catharine was to receive their oaths of fidelity. A
+crowd pushed in to do homage, composed not only of soldiers, but of
+members of the senate and the synod. A manifesto was quickly drawn up by
+a clerk named Tieplof, printed in all haste, and distributed to the
+people, who read it and joined heartily in the cry of "Long live the
+empress!"
+
+Catharine next reviewed the troops, who again hailed her with shouts.
+And thus it was that a czar was dethroned and a new reign begun without
+the loss of a drop of blood. There was some little disorder. Several
+wine-shops were broken into, the house of Prince George of Holstein was
+pillaged and he and his wife were roughly handled, but that was all: as
+yet it had been one of the simplest of revolutions.
+
+Catharine was empress, but how long would she remain so? Her empire
+consisted of the fickle people of St. Petersburg, her army of four
+regiments of the guards. If Peter had the courage to strike for his
+throne, he might readily regain it. He had with him about fifteen
+hundred Holsteiners, an excellent body of troops, on whose loyalty he
+could fully rely, for they were foreigners in Russia, and their safety
+depended on him. At the head of these troops was one of the first
+soldiers of the age, Field-Marshal Muenich. The main Russian army was in
+Pomerania, under the orders of the czar, if he were alert in giving
+them. He had it in view to annihilate the Danes, to show himself a hero
+under Frederick of Prussia; surely a handful of conspirators and a few
+regiments of malcontents would have but a shallow chance.
+
+Yet Catharine knew the man with whom she dealt. The grain of courage
+which would have saved Peter was not to be found in his make-up, and
+Muenich strove in vain to induce him to act with manly resolution. A
+dozen fancies passed through his mind in an hour. He drew up manifestoes
+for a paper campaign. He sent to Oranienbaum for the Holstein troops,
+intending to fortify Peterhof, but changed his mind before they arrived.
+
+Muenich now advised him to go to Cronstadt and secure himself in that
+stronghold. After some hesitation he agreed, but night had fallen
+before the whole party, male and female, set off in a yacht and galley,
+as if on a pleasure-trip. It was one o'clock in the morning when they
+arrived in sight of the fortress.
+
+"Who goes there?" hailed a sentinel from the ramparts.
+
+"The emperor."
+
+"There is no emperor. Keep off!"
+
+Delay had given Catharine ample time to get ahead of him.
+
+"Do not heed the sentry," cried Muenich. "They will not dare to fire on
+you. Land, and all will be safe."
+
+But Peter was below deck, in a panic of fear. The women were shrieking
+in terror. Despite Muenich, the vessels were put about. Then the old
+soldier, half in despair at this poltroonery, proposed another plan.
+
+"Let us go to Revel, embark on a war-ship, and proceed to Pomerania.
+There you can take command of the army. Do this, sire, and within six
+weeks St. Petersburg and Russia will be at your feet. I will answer for
+this with my head."
+
+But Peter was hopelessly incompetent to act. He would go back to
+Oranienbaum. He would negotiate. He arrived there to learn that
+Catharine was marching on him at the head of her regiments. On she came,
+her cap crowned with oak leaves, her hair floating in the wind. The
+soldiers had thrown off their Prussian uniforms and were dressed in
+their old garb. They were eager to fight the Holstein foreigners.
+
+No opportunity came for this. A messenger met them with a flag of
+truce. Peter had sent an offer to divide the power with Catharine.
+Receiving no answer, in an hour he sent an offer to abdicate. He was
+brought to Peterhof, where Catharine had halted, and where he cried like
+a whipped child on receiving the orders of the new empress and being
+forcibly separated from the woman who had ruined him.
+
+A day had changed the fate of an empire. Within little more than six
+months from his accession the czar had been hurled from his throne and
+his wife had taken his place. Peter was sent under guard to Ropcha, a
+lonely spot about twenty miles away, there to stay until accommodations
+could be prepared for him in the strong fortress of Schluesselburg.
+
+He was never to reach the latter place. He had abdicated on July 14. On
+July 18 Alexis Orlof, covered with sweat and dust, burst into the
+dressing-room of the empress. He had a startling story to tell. He had
+ridden full speed from Ropcha with the news of the death of Peter III.
+
+The story was that the czar had been found dead in his room. That was
+doubtless the case, but that he had been murdered no one had a shadow of
+doubt. Yet no one knew, and no one knows to this day, just what had
+taken place. Stories of his having been poisoned and strangled have been
+told, not without warrant. A detailed account is given of poison being
+forced upon him by the Orlofs, who are said to have, on the poison
+failing to act, strangled him in a revolting manner by their own hands.
+Though this story lacks proof, the body was quite black. "Blood oozed
+through the pores, and even through the gloves which covered the hands."
+Those who kissed the corpse came away with swollen lips.
+
+That Peter was murdered is almost certain; but that Catharine had
+anything to do with it is not so sure. It may have been done by the
+conspirators to prevent any reversal of the revolution. Prison-walls
+have hidden many a dark event; and we only know that the czar was dead
+and Catharine on the throne.
+
+
+
+
+_A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE._
+
+
+While the armies of Catharine II. were threatening with destruction the
+empire of Turkey, and her diplomats were deciding what part of
+dismembered Poland should fall to her share, her throne itself was put
+in danger of destruction by an aspirant who arose in the east and for
+two years kept Russia from end to end in a state of dire alarm. The
+summary manner in which Peter III. had been removed from the throne was
+not relished by the people. Numerous small revolts broke out, which were
+successively put down. St. Petersburg accepted Catharine, but Moscow did
+not, and on her visits to the latter city the political atmosphere
+proved so frigid that she was glad to get back to the more genial
+climate of the city on the Neva.
+
+Years passed before Russia settled down to full acceptance of a reign
+begun in violence and sustained by force, and in this interval there
+were no fewer than six impostors to be dealt with, each of whom claimed
+to be Peter III. Murdered emperors sleep badly in their graves. The
+example of the false Dmitris, generations before, remained in men's
+minds, and it seemed as if every Russian who bore a resemblance to the
+vanished czar was ready to claim his vacated seat.
+
+Of these false Peters, the sixth and most dangerous was a Cossack of
+the Don, whose actual name was Pugatchef, but whose face seemed capable
+of calling up an army wherever it appeared, and who, if his ability had
+been equal to his fortune, might easily have seated himself on the
+throne. The impostor proved to be his own worst foe, and defeated
+himself by his innate barbarity.
+
+Pugatchef began his career as a common soldier, afterwards becoming an
+officer. Deserting the army after a period of service, he made his way
+to Poland, where he dwelt with the monks of that country and pretended
+to equal the best of them in piety. Here he was told that he bore a
+striking resemblance to Peter III. The hint was enough. He returned to
+Russia, where he professed sanctity, dressed like a patriarch of the
+church, and scattered benedictions freely among the Cossacks of the Don.
+He soon gained adherents among the old orthodox party, who were bitter
+against the religious looseness of the court. Finally he gave himself
+out as Peter III., declaring that the story of his death was false, that
+he had escaped from the hands of the assassins, and that he desired to
+win the throne, not for himself, but for his infant son Paul.
+
+The first result of this announcement was that the impostor was seized
+and taken to Kasan as a prisoner. But the carelessness of his guards
+allowed him to escape from his prison cell, and he made his way to the
+Volga, near its entrance into the Caspian Sea, where he began to collect
+a body of followers among the Cossacks of that region. His first open
+declaration was made on September 17, 1773, when he appeared with three
+hundred Cossacks at the town of Yaitsk, and published an appeal to
+orthodox believers, declaring that he was the czar Peter III. and
+calling upon them for support.
+
+His handful of Cossacks soon grew into an army, multitudes of the
+tribesmen gathered around him, and in a brief time he found himself at
+the head of a large body of the lowest of the people. The man was a
+savage at heart, betraying his innate depravity by foolish and useless
+cruelties, and in this way preventing the more educated class of the
+community from joining his ranks.
+
+Yet he contrived to gather about him an army of several thousand men,
+and obtained a considerable number of cannon, with which he soon
+afterwards laid siege to the city of Orenburg. Both Yaitsk and Orenburg
+defied his efforts, but he had greater success in the field, defeating
+two armies in succession. These victories gave him new assurance. He now
+caused money to be coined in his name, as though he were the lawful
+emperor, and marched northward at the head of a large force to meet the
+armies of the state.
+
+His army was destitute of order or discipline and he woefully deficient
+in military skill, yet his proclamation of freedom to the people, and
+the opportunities he gave them for plunder and outrage, strengthened his
+hands, and recruits came in multitudes. The Tartars, Kirghis, and
+Bashkirs, who had been brought against their will under the Russian
+yoke, flocked to his standard, in the hope of regaining their freedom.
+Many of the Poles who had been banished from their country also sought
+his ranks, and the people of Moscow and its vicinity, who had from the
+first been opposed to Catharine's reign, waited his approach that they
+might break out in open rebellion.
+
+The outbreak had thus become serious, and had Pugatchef been skilled as
+a leader he might have won the throne. As it was, his followers showed a
+fiery valor, and, undisciplined as they were, gave the armies of the
+empire no small concern. Bibikof, who had been sent to subdue them,
+failed through over-caution, and was slain in the field. His
+lieutenants, Galitzin and Michelson, proved more active, and frequently
+defeated the impostor, though only to find him rising again with new
+armies as often as the old ones were crushed, like the fabulous giant
+who sprang up in double form whenever cut in twain.
+
+Prince Galitzin defeated him twice, the last time after a furious battle
+six hours in length. Pugatchef, abandoned by his followers, now fled to
+the Urals, but soon appeared again with a fresh body of troops. Between
+the beginning of March and the end of May, 1774, the rebel chief was
+defeated six or seven times by Michelson, in the end being driven as a
+fugitive to the Ural Mountains. But he had only to raise his standard
+again for fresh armies to spring up as if from the ground, and early
+June found him once more in the field. Defeated on June 4, he fled once
+more to the hills, but in the beginning of July was facing his foes
+again at the head of twenty-two thousand men.
+
+Only the cruelty shown by himself and his followers, and his
+ruthlessness in permitting the plunder and burning of churches and
+convents, kept back the much greater hosts who would otherwise have
+flocked to his ranks. And at this critical moment in his career he
+committed the signal error of failing to march on Moscow, the principal
+seat of the old Russian faith which he proposed to restore, and where he
+would have found an army of partisans. He marched upon Kasan instead,
+took the city, but failed to capture the citadel. Here he was making
+havoc with fire and sword, when Michelson came up and defeated him in a
+long and obstinate fight.
+
+[Illustration: THE CITY OF KASAN.]
+
+He now fled to the Volga, wasting the land as he went, burning the crops
+and villages, and leaving desolation in his track. Men came in numbers
+to replace those he had lost, and an army of twenty thousand was soon
+again under his command. With these he surprised and routed a Russian
+force and took several forts on the Volga, while the German colonies of
+Moravians which had been established upon that stream, and were among
+the most industrious inhabitants of the empire, suffered severely at his
+hands. In the town of Saratof he murdered all whom he met.
+
+As an example of the character of this monster in human form, it is
+related that hearing that an astronomer from the Imperial Academy of
+Sciences of St. Petersburg was near by, engaged in laying out the route
+of a canal from the Volga to the Don, he ordered him to be brought
+before him. When the peaceful astronomer appeared, the brutal ruffian
+bade his men to lift him on their pikes "so that he might be nearer the
+stars." Then he ordered him to be cut to pieces.
+
+The end of this carnival of murder came at the siege of Zaritzin. Here
+Michelson came up on the 22d of August and forced him to raise the
+siege. On the 24th the insurgents were attacked when in the intricate
+passes of the mountains and encumbered with baggage-wagons, women, and
+camp-followers. Though thus taken at a disadvantage, they defended
+themselves vigorously, the mass of them falling in the mountain passes
+or being driven over the cliffs and precipices. Pugatchef continued to
+fight till his army was destroyed, then made his escape, as so often
+before, swimming the Volga and vanishing in the desert. Only about sixty
+of his most faithful partisans accompanied him in his flight.
+
+Michelson, failing to reach him in his retreat, took care that he should
+not emerge into the cultivated districts. But in the end the Russians
+were able to capture him only by treachery. They won over some of their
+Cossack prisoners, among them Antizof, the nearest friend of the
+fugitive. These were then set free, and sought the desert retreat of
+their late leader, where they awaited an opportunity to take him by
+surprise.
+
+This they were not able to do until November. Pugatchef was gnawing the
+bone of a horse for food when his false friends ran up to him, saying,
+"Come, you have long enough been emperor."
+
+Perceiving that treachery was intended, he drew his pistol and fired at
+his foes, shattering the arm of the foremost. The others seized and
+bound him and conveyed him to Goroduk in the Ural, the locality of
+Antizof's tribe. Michelson was still seeking him in the desert when word
+came to him that the fugitive had been delivered into Russian hands at
+Simbirsk, and was being conveyed to Moscow in an iron cage, like the
+beast of prey which he resembled in character.
+
+On the way he sought to starve himself, but was forced to eat by the
+soldiers. On reaching Moscow he counterfeited madness. His trial was
+conducted without the torture which had formerly been so common a
+feature of Russian tribunals. The sentence of the court was that he
+should be exhibited to the people with his hands and feet cut off, and
+then quartered alive. With unyielding resolution Pugatchef awaited this
+cruel death, but the sentence, for some reason, was not executed, he
+being first beheaded and then quartered. Four of his principal followers
+suffered the same fate, and thus ended one of the most determined
+efforts on the part of an impostor to seize the Russian throne that had
+ever been known. The undoubted courage of the man was enough to prove
+that he was not Peter III. Had he combined military capacity with his
+daring he could readily have won the throne.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FLIGHT OF THE KALMUCKS._
+
+
+On the 5th of January, 1771, began one of the most remarkable events in
+the history of the world, the migration of an entire nation, more than
+half a million strong, with its women and children, flocks and herds,
+and all that it possessed, to a new home four thousand miles away. More
+than once--many times, apparently--in the history of the past such
+migrations have taken place. But those were warlike movements, with
+conquest as their aim. This was a peaceful migration, the only desire of
+those concerned being to be let alone. This desire was not granted, and
+death and terror marked every step of their frightful journey.
+
+A century and a half earlier the fathers of these people, the Kalmuck
+Tartars, had left their homes in the Chinese empire and wandered west,
+finding a resting-place at last on the Volga River, in the Russian
+realm. Here they would have been well content to remain but for the arts
+and designs of one man, Zebek-Dorchi by name, who, ambitious to be made
+khan of the tribe, and not being favored in his desires by the Russian
+court, determined to remove the whole Kalmuck nation beyond the reach of
+Russian control.
+
+This was no easy matter to do. Russia had spread to the east until the
+whole width of Asia lay within its broad expanse and its boundary
+touched the Pacific waves. To reach China, the mighty Mongolian plain
+had to be crossed, largely a desert, swarming with hostile tribes; death
+and disaster were likely to haunt every mile of the way; and a general
+tomb in the wilderness, rather than a home in a new land, was the most
+probable destiny of the migrating horde.
+
+Zebek-Dorchi was confronted with a difficult task. He had to induce the
+tribesmen to consent to the new movement, and that so quickly that a
+start could be made before the Russians became aware of the scheme.
+Otherwise the path would be lined with armies and the movement checked.
+
+Oubacha, the khan of the Kalmucks, was a brave but weak man. The
+conspirator controlled him, and through him the people. On a fixed day,
+through a false alarm that the Kirghises and Bashkirs had made an inroad
+upon the Kalmuck lands, he succeeded in gathering a great Kalmuck horde,
+eighty thousand in all, at a point out of reach of Russian ears. Here,
+with subtle eloquence, he told them of the oppressions of Russia, of her
+insults to the Kalmucks, her contempt for their religion, and her design
+to reduce them to slavery, and declared that a plan had been devised to
+rob them of their eldest sons. By a skilful mixture of truth and
+falsehood he roused their fears and their anger, and at length he
+proposed that they should leave their fields and make a rapid march to
+the Temba or some other great river, from behind which they could speak
+in bolder language to the Russian empress and claim better terms. He
+did not venture as yet to hint at his startling plan of a migration to
+far-off China.
+
+The simple minded Tartars, made furious by his skilful oratory, accepted
+his plan by acclamation, and returned home to push with the utmost haste
+the preparations for their stupendous task. The idea of a migration _en
+masse_ did not frighten them. They were nomads and the descendants of
+nomads, who for ages had been used to fold their tents and flit away.
+
+The Kalmuck villages extended on both sides of the Volga. A large
+section of the horde would have to cross that great stream, and this
+could be done with sufficient speed only when its surface was bridged
+with ice. For this reason midwinter was chosen for the flight, despite
+the sufferings which must arise from the bitter Russian cold, and the
+5th of January was appointed for religious reasons by the leading Lama
+of the tribe. The year had been selected by the Great Lama of Thibet,
+the head of the Buddhist faith, to which the Kalmucks belonged, and to
+whom the conspirator had appealed.
+
+Despite the secrecy and rapidity of the movement, tidings of it reached
+the Russian court. But the Russian envoy who dwelt among the Kalmucks
+was quite deceived by their wiles, and sent word to the imperial court
+that the rumors were false and nothing resembling an outbreak was in
+view. The governor of Astrachan, a man of more sense and discernment,
+sent courier after courier, but his warnings were ignored, and the fatal
+5th of January came without a preventive step being taken by the
+government. Then the governor, learning that the migration had actually
+begun, sprang into his sleigh and drove over the Russian snows at the
+furious speed of three hundred miles a day, finally rushing into the
+imperial presence-chamber at St. Petersburg to announce to the empress
+that all his warnings had been true and that the Kalmucks were in full
+flight. Other couriers quickly confirmed his words, and the envoy paid
+for his blindness by death in a dungeon-cell.
+
+Meanwhile the banks of the Volga had been the locality of a remarkable
+event. At early dawn of the selected day the Kalmucks east of the stream
+began to assemble in troops and squadrons, gathering in tens of
+thousands, a great body of the tribe setting out every half-hour on its
+march. Women and children, several hundred thousand in number, were
+placed on wagons and camels, and moved off in masses of twenty thousand
+at once, with escorts of mounted men. As the march proceeded, outlying
+bodies of the horde kept falling in during that and the following day.
+
+From sixty to eighty thousand of the best mounted warriors stayed behind
+for work of ruin and revenge. Their first purpose was to destroy their
+own dwellings, lest some of the weak-minded might be tempted to return.
+Oubacha, the khan, set the example by applying the torch to his own
+palace. Before the day was over the villages throughout a district of
+ten thousand square miles were in a simultaneous blaze. Nothing was
+saved except the portable utensils and such of the wood-work as might be
+used in making the long Tartar lances.
+
+This was but part of the destruction proposed. Zebek-Dorchi had it in
+view to pillage and destroy all the Russian towns, churches, and
+buildings of every kind within the surrounding district, with outrage
+and death to their inhabitants,--a frightful scheme, which was
+providentially checked. The day of flight had been selected, as has been
+said, in the worst season of the year, in order that the tribes west of
+the Volga might be able to cross its surface on a thick bridge of ice.
+Yet for some reason--possibly because of the weakness of the ice--the
+western Kalmucks failed to join their eastern brethren, and fully one
+hundred thousand of the Tartars were left behind. It was this that saved
+the Russian towns, it being feared by the leaders that such a vengeance
+would be repaid upon their brethren left to Russian reprisal. These
+western Kalmucks little guessed what horrors they were escaping by being
+prevented from joining in the flight.
+
+The migrating horde was not less than six hundred thousand strong, while
+a vast number of horses, camels, cattle, goats, and sheep added to the
+multitude of living forms. The march was a forced one. Every day gained
+was of prime importance, for it was well known that Russian armies would
+soon be in hot pursuit, while the tribes on their line of march,
+hereditary foes of the Kalmucks, would gather from all sides to oppose
+their passage as the news of the flight reached their ears.
+
+The river Jaik, three hundred miles away, must be reached before a day's
+rest could be had. The weather was not severely cold, and the journey
+might have been accomplished with little distress but for the forced
+pace. As it was, the cattle suffered greatly, the sheep died in
+multitudes, milk began to fail, and only the great number of camels
+saved the children and the infirm.
+
+The first of the subjects of Russia with whom the Kalmucks came into
+collision were the Cossacks of the Jaik. At this season most of these
+were absent at the fisheries on the Caspian, and the others fled in
+crowds to the fortress of Koulagina, which was quickly summoned to
+surrender by the Kalmuck khan. The Russian commandant, numerous as were
+his foes, refused, knowing that they must soon resume their flight. He
+had not long to wait. On the fifth day of the siege, from the walls of
+the fort a number of Tartar couriers, mounted on the swift Bactrian
+camels, were seen to cross the plains and ride into the Kalmuck camp at
+their highest speed.
+
+Immediately a great agitation was visible in the camp, the siege was
+raised, and the signal for flight resounded through the host. The news
+brought was that an entire Kalmuck division, numbering nine thousand
+fighting-men, stationed on a distant flank of the line of march, and
+between whom and the Cossacks there was an ancient feud, had been
+attacked and virtually exterminated. The exhaustion of their horses and
+camels had prevented flight, quarter was not asked or given, and the
+battle continued until not a fighting-man was left alive.
+
+The utmost speed was now necessary, for a sufficient reason. The next
+safe halting-place of the Kalmucks was on the east bank of the Toorgai
+River. Between it and them rose a hilly country, a narrow defile through
+which offered the nearest and best route. This lost, the need of
+pasturage would require a further sweep of five hundred miles. The
+Cossack light horsemen were only about fifty miles more distant from the
+pass. If it were to be won, the most rapid march possible must be made.
+
+For a day and a night the flight went on, with renewed suffering and
+loss of animals. Then a snowfall, soon too deep to journey through,
+checked all progress, and for ten days they had a season of rest,
+comfort, and plenty. The cows and oxen had perished in such numbers that
+it was resolved to slaughter what remained, feast to their hearts'
+content, and salt the remainder for future stores.
+
+At length clear, frosty weather came: the snow ceased to drift, and its
+surface froze. It would bear the camels, and the flight was resumed. But
+already seventy thousand persons of all ages had perished, in addition
+to those slain in battle, and new suffering and death impended, for word
+came that the troops of the empire were converging from all parts of
+Central Asia upon the fords of the Toorgai, as the best place to cut off
+the flight of the tribes, while a powerful army was marching rapidly
+upon their rear, though delayed by its artillery.
+
+On the 2d of February Ouchim, the much-desired defile, was reached. The
+Cossacks had been out-marched. A considerable body of them, it is true,
+had reached the pass some hours before, but they were attacked and so
+fiercely dealt with that few of them escaped. The Kalmucks here
+obtained revenge for the slaughter of their fellows twenty days before.
+
+The road was now open. How long it would continue open was in doubt.
+Word came that a large Russian army, led by General Traubenberg, was
+advancing upon the Toorgai. He was to be met on his route by ten
+thousand Bashkirs and as many Kirghises, implacable enemies of the
+Kalmucks, from whom they had suffered in past years. The only hope now
+lay in speed, and onward the Kalmucks pressed, their line of march
+marked by the bodies of the dead. The weak, the sick, had to be left
+behind; nothing was suffered to impede the rapidity of their flight.
+
+From the starting-point on the Volga to the halting-ground on the
+Toorgai, counting the circuits that had to be made, was full two
+thousand miles, much of it traversed in the dead of winter, the cold,
+for seven weeks of the journey, being excessively severe. Napoleon's
+army in its retreat from Moscow suffered no more from the winter chill
+than did this migrating nation. On many a morning the dawning light
+shone on a circle that had gathered the night before around a sparse
+fire (made from the lading of the camels or from broken-up
+baggage-wagons), now dead and frozen stiff as they sat.
+
+But at length the snows ceased to fall, the frost to chill. Spring came.
+March and April passed away. May arrived with its balmy airs. Vernal
+sights and sounds cheered them on every side. During all these months
+they continued their march, and towards the end of May the Toorgai was
+reached and crossed, and the weary wanderers, having left their enemies
+far in the rear, hoped to find comfort and security during weeks of
+rest, and to complete their journey with less of ruin and suffering.
+They little dreamed that the worst of their task had yet to be endured.
+
+During the five months of their wanderings their losses had been
+frightfully severe. Not less than two hundred and fifty thousand members
+of the horde had perished, while their herds and flocks--oxen, cows,
+sheep, goats, horses, mules, and asses--had perished, only the camels
+surviving. These hardy creatures had come through the terrible journey
+unharmed, and on them rested all their hopes for the remainder of their
+flight.
+
+But another two thousand miles lay before them, with hostility in front
+and in rear. Should they still go on, or should they return and throw
+themselves on the mercy of the empress? Oubacha, the khan, advised
+return, offering to take all the guilt of the flight upon himself.
+Zebek-Dorchi earnestly urged them to proceed, and not lose the fruit of
+all their suffering. But the people, worn out with the hardships and
+perils of their route, favored a return and a trust in the imperial
+mercy, and this would probably have been determined upon but for an
+untoward event.
+
+This was the arrival of two envoys from Traubenberg, the Russian
+general, who, after a long and painful march, had approached within a
+few days' journey of the fugitives about the 1st of June. On his way he
+had been joined by large bodies of the Kirghis and Bashkir nomads. The
+harsh tone and peremptory demands of the envoys aroused hostile feelings
+among the Kalmuck chiefs. But the main check to negotiations was the
+action of the Bashkirs, who, finding that Traubenberg would not advance,
+left his camp in a body and set off for the Kalmuck halting-place.
+
+In six days they reached the Toorgai, swam their horses across it, and
+fell in fury upon the Kalmucks, who were dispersed over leagues of
+ground in search of pasture and food. Peace at once changed to war. Over
+a field from thirty to forty miles wide, fighting, flight and pursuit,
+rescue and death, went on at all points. More than once were the khan
+and Zebek-Dorchi in peril of death. At one time both were made
+prisoners. But at length, concentrating their strength, they forced the
+Bashkirs to retreat. For two days more the wild Bashkir and Kirghis
+cavalry continued their attacks, and the Kalmuck chiefs, looking upon
+these as the advance parties of the Russian army, felt themselves
+obliged to order a renewal of the flight. Thus suddenly ended their
+hoped-for season of repose.
+
+One event took place during this period of which it is important to
+speak. A Russian gentleman, Weseloff by name, was held prisoner in the
+Kalmuck camp, and had been brought that far on their route. The khan
+Oubacha, who saw no object in holding him, now gave him leave to attempt
+his escape, and also asked him to accompany him during a private
+interview which he was to hold on the next night with the hetman of the
+Bashkirs. Weseloff declined to do so, and bade the khan to beware, as
+he feared the scheme meant treachery.
+
+About ten that night Weseloff, with three Kalmucks who had offered to
+join in his flight, they having strong reasons for a return to Russia,
+sought a number of the half-wild horses of that district which they had
+caught and hidden in the thickets on the river's side. They were in the
+act of mounting, when the silence of the night was broken by a sudden
+clash of arms, and a voice, which sounded like that of the khan, was
+heard calling for aid.
+
+The Russian, remembering what Oubacha had told him, rode off hastily
+towards the sound, bidding his companions follow. Reaching an open glade
+in the wood, he saw four men fighting with nine or ten, one, who looked
+like the khan, contending on foot against two horsemen. Weseloff fired
+at once, bringing down one of the assailants. His companions followed
+with their fire, and then all rode into the glade, whereupon the
+assailants, thinking that a troop of cavalry was upon them, hastily
+fled. The dead man, when examined, proved to be a confidential servant
+of Zebek-Dorchi. The secret was out: this ambitious conspirator had
+sought the murder of the khan.
+
+Accompanying the khan until he had reached a place of safety, Weseloff
+and his companions, at the suggestion of the grateful Oubacha, rode off
+at the utmost speed, fearing pursuit. Their return was made along the
+route the Kalmucks had traversed, every step of which could be traced by
+skeletons and other memorials of the flight. Among these were heaps of
+money which had been abandoned in the desert, and of which they took as
+much as they could conveniently carry. Weseloff at length reached home,
+rushed precipitately into the house where his loving mother had long
+mourned his loss, and so shocked her by the sudden revulsion of joy
+after her long sorrow that she fell dead on the spot. It was a sad
+ending to his happy return.
+
+To return to the Kalmuck flight. Two thousand miles still remained to be
+traversed before the borders of China would be reached. All that took
+place in the dreary interval is too much to tell. It must suffice to say
+that the Bashkirs pursued them through the whole long route, while the
+choice of two evils lay in front. Now they made their way through desert
+regions. Now, pressed by want of food, they traversed rich and inhabited
+lands, through which they had to win a passage with the sword. Every day
+the Bashkirs attacked them, drawing off into the desert when too sharply
+resisted. Thus, with endless alternations of hunger and bloodshed, the
+borders of China at length were approached.
+
+And now we have another scene in this remarkable drama to describe. Keen
+Lung, the emperor of China, had been long apprised of the flight of the
+Kalmucks, and had prepared a place of residence for these erring
+children of his nation, as he considered them, on their return to their
+native land. But he did not expect their arrival until the approach of
+winter, having been advised that they proposed to dwell during the
+summer heats on the Toorgai's fertile banks.
+
+One fine morning in September, 1771, this fatherly monarch was enjoying
+himself in hunting in a wild district north of the Great Wall. Here, for
+hundreds of square leagues, the country was overgrown with forest,
+filled with game. Centrally in this district rose a gorgeous
+hunting-lodge, to which the emperor retired annually for a season of
+escape from the cares of government. Leaving his lodge, he had pursued
+the game through some two hundred miles of forest, every night pitching
+his tent in a different locality. A military escort followed at no great
+distance in the rear.
+
+On the morning in question the emperor found himself on the margin of
+the vast deserts of Asia, which stretched interminably away. As he stood
+in his tent door, gazing across the extended plain, he saw with
+surprise, far to the west, a vast dun cloud arise, which mounted and
+spread until it covered that whole quarter of the sky. It thickened as
+it rose, and began to roll in billowy volumes towards his camp.
+
+This singular phenomenon aroused general attention. The suite of the
+emperor hastened to behold it. In the rear the silver trumpets sounded,
+and from the forest avenues rode the imperial cavalry escort. All eyes
+were fixed upon the rolling cloud, the sentiment of curiosity being
+gradually replaced by a dread of possible danger. At first the
+dust-cloud was imagined to be due to a vast troop of deer or other wild
+animals, driven into the plain by the hunting train or by beasts of
+prey. This conception vanished as it came nearer, until, seemingly, it
+was but a few miles away.
+
+And now, as the breeze freshened a little, the vapory curtain rolled
+and eddied, until it assumed the appearance of vast aerial draperies
+depending from the heavens to the earth; sometimes, where rent by the
+eddying breeze, it resembled portals and archways, through which, at
+intervals, were seen the gleam of weapons and the dim forms of camels
+and human beings. At times, again, the cloud thickened, shutting all
+from view; but through it broke the din of battle, the shouts of
+combatants, the roar of infuriated hordes in mortal conflict.
+
+It was, in fact, the Kalmuck host, now in the last stage of misery and
+exhaustion, yet still pursued by their unrelenting foes. Of the six
+hundred thousand who had begun the journey scarcely a third remained,
+cold, heat, famine, and warfare having swept away nearly half a million
+of the fleeing host, while of their myriad animals only the camels and
+the horses brought from the Toorgai remained. For the past ten days
+their suffering had reached a climax. They had been traversing a
+frightful desert, destitute alike of water and of vegetation. Two days
+before their small allowance of water had failed, and to the fatigue of
+flight had been added the horrors of insupportable thirst.
+
+On came the flying and fighting mass. It was soon evident that it was
+not moving towards the imperial train, and those who knew the country
+judged that it was speeding towards a large freshwater lake about seven
+or eight miles away. Thither the imperial cavalry, of which a strong
+body, attended with artillery, lay some miles in the rear, was ordered
+in all haste to ride; and there, at noon of September 8, the great
+migration of the Kalmucks came to an end, amid the most ferocious and
+bloodthirsty scene of its whole frightful course.
+
+The lake of Tengis lies in a hollow among low mountains, on the verge of
+the great desert of Gobi. The Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a
+road that led down to the lake at about eleven o'clock. The descent was
+a winding and difficult one, and took them an hour and a half, during
+the whole of which they were spectators of an extraordinary scene below,
+the last and most fiendish spectacle in eight months of almost constant
+warfare.
+
+The sight of the distant hills and forests on that morning, and the
+announcement of the guides that the lake of Tengis was near at hand, had
+excited the suffering host into a state of frenzy, and a wild rush was
+made for the water, in which all discipline was lost, and the heat of
+the day and the exhaustion of the people were ignored. The rear-guard
+joined in the mad flight. In among the people rode the savage Bashkirs,
+suffering as much as themselves, yet still eager for blood, and
+slaughtering them by wholesale, almost without resistance. Screams and
+shouts filled the air, but none heeded or halted, all rushing madly on,
+spurred forward by the intolerable agonies of thirst.
+
+At length the lake was reached. Into its waters dashed the whole
+suffering mass, forgetful of everything but the wild instinct to quench
+their thirst. But hardly had the water moistened their lips when the
+carnival of bloodshed was resumed, and the waters became crimsoned with
+gore. The savage Bashkirs rode fiercely through the host, striking off
+heads with unappeased fury. The mortal foes joined in a death-grapple in
+the waters, often sinking together beneath the ruffled surface. Even the
+camels were made to take part in the fight, striking down the foe with
+their lashing forelegs. The waters grew more and more polluted; but new
+myriads came up momentarily and plunged in, heedless of everything but
+thirst. Such a spectacle of revengeful passion, ghastly fear, the frenzy
+of hatred, mortal conflict, convulsion and despair as fell on the eyes
+of the approaching horsemen has rarely been seen, and that quiet
+mountain lake, which perhaps had never before vibrated with the sounds
+of battle, was on that fatal day converted into an encrimsoned sea of
+blood.
+
+At length the Bashkirs, alarmed by the near approach of the Chinese
+cavalry, began to draw off and gather into groups, in preparation to
+meet the onset of a new foe. As they did so, the commandant of a small
+Chinese fort, built on an eminence above the lake, poured an artillery
+fire into their midst. Each group was thus dispersed as rapidly as it
+formed, the Chinese cavalry reached the foot of the hills and joined in
+the attack, and soon a new scene of war and bloodshed was in full
+process of enactment.
+
+But the savage horsemen, convinced that the contest was growing
+hopeless, now began to retire, and were quickly in full flight into the
+desert, pursued as far as it was deemed wise. No pursuit was needed,
+even to satisfy the Kalmuck spirit of revenge. The fact that their
+enemies had again to cross that inhospitable desert, with its horrors of
+hunger and thirst, was as full of retribution as the most vindictive
+could have asked.
+
+Here ends our tale. The exhausted Kalmucks were abundantly provided for
+by their new lord and master, who supplied them with the food necessary,
+established them in a fertile region of his empire, furnished them with
+clothing, tools, a year's subsistence, grain for their fields, animals
+for their pastures, and money to aid them in their other needs,
+displaying towards his new subjects the most kindly and munificent
+generosity. They were placed under better conditions than they had
+enjoyed in Russia, though changed from a pastoral and nomadic people to
+an agricultural one.
+
+As for Zebek-Dorchi, his attempt on the life of the khan had produced a
+feud between the two, which grew until it attracted the attention of the
+emperor. Inquiring into the circumstances of the enmity, he espoused the
+cause of Oubacha, which so infuriated the foe of the khan that he wove
+nets of conspiracy even against the emperor himself. In the end
+Zebek-Dorchi, with his accomplices, was invited to the imperial lodge,
+and there, at a great banquet, his arts and plots were exposed, and he
+and all his followers were assassinated at the feast.
+
+As a durable monument to the mighty exodus of the Kalmucks, the most
+remarkable circumstance of the kind in the whole history of nations, the
+emperor Keen Lung ordered to be erected on the banks of the Ily, at the
+margin of the steppes, a great monument of granite and brass, bearing
+an inscription to the following effect:
+
+          By the Will of God,
+      Here, upon the brink of these Deserts,
+    Which from this Point begin and stretch away,
+        Pathless, treeless, waterless,
+For thousands of miles, and along the margins of many mighty Nations,
+    Rested from their labors and from great afflictions
+      Under the shadow of the Chinese Wall,
+  And by the favor of KEEN LUNG, God's Lieutenant upon Earth,
+The Ancient Children of the Wilderness, the Torgote Tartars,
+    Flying before the wrath of the Grecian Czar,
+  Wandering sheep who had strayed away from the Celestial
+        Empire in the year 1616,
+  But are now mercifully gathered again, after infinite sorrow,
+      Into the fold of their forgiving Shepherd.
+         Hallowed be the spot forever, and
+      Hallowed be the day,--September 8, 1771.
+              Amen.
+
+
+
+
+_A MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION SCENE._
+
+
+Catharine the Great earned her title cheaply, her patent of greatness
+being due to the fact that she had the judgment to select great generals
+and a great minister and the wisdom to cling to them. Russia grew
+powerful during her reign, largely through the able work of her
+generals, and she forgave Potemkin a thousand insults and unblushing
+robberies in view of his successful statesmanship. Potemkin possessed,
+in addition to his ability as a statesman, the faculty of a spectacular
+artist, and arranged a show for the empress which stands unrivalled amid
+the triumphs of the stage. It is the tale of this spectacle which we
+propose to tell.
+
+Catharine had literary aspirations, one of her admirations being
+Voltaire, with whom she corresponded, and on whom she depended to
+chronicle the glory of her reign. The poet had his dreams, in which the
+woman shared, and between them they contrived a scheme of a modern
+Utopia, a Russo-Grecian city of whose civilization the empress was to be
+the source, and which a decree was to raise from the desert and an idea
+make great. This fancy Potemkin, who stood ready to flatter the empress
+at any price, undertook to realize, and he built her a city in the
+fashion in which cities were built in the times of the Arabian Nights,
+and made it flourish in the same unsubstantial fashion. The magnificent
+Potemkin never hesitated before any question of cost. Russia was rich,
+and could bleed freely to please the empress's whim. He therefore
+ordered a city to be built, with dwellings and edifices of every
+description common to the cities of that date,--stores, palaces, public
+halls, private residences in profusion. The buildings ready, he sought
+for citizens, and forcibly drove the people from all quarters to take up
+a temporary residence within its walls. It was his one purpose to make a
+spectacle of this theatrical city to enchant the eyes of the empress. So
+that it had an appearance of prosperity during her visit, he cared not a
+fig if it fell to pieces and its inhabitants vanished as soon as his
+supporting hand was removed. He only required that the scenes should be
+set and the actors in place when the curtain rose.
+
+And the city grew, on the banks of the Dnieper, eighteen million rubles
+being granted by the empress for its cost,--though much of this clung to
+the bird-lime of avarice on Potemkin's fingers. It was named Kherson.
+The desert around it was erected into a province, entitled by the wily
+minister _Catharine's Glory_ (Slava Ekatarina). Another province,
+farther north, he named after his imperial mistress Ekatarinoslaf. And
+thus, by fraud and violence, a city to order was brought into existence.
+The stage was ready. The next thing to be done was to raise the curtain
+which hid it from Catharine's eyes.
+
+It was early in the year 1787 that the empress began her journey towards
+her Utopian city, to receive the homage of its citizens and to exhibit
+to the world the magnificence of her reign. Great projects were in the
+air. Poland had just been cut into fragments and distributed among the
+hungry kingdoms around. The same was to be done with Turkey. Joseph II.
+of Austria was to meet the empress in Kherson to consult upon this
+partition of the Turkish empire; while Constantine, grand duke of Russia
+and grandson of the empress, was to reign at Byzantium, or
+Constantinople, over the new empire carved from the Turkish realm. Such
+was the paper programme prepared by Potemkin and the empress, the
+minister doubtless smiling behind his sleeve, his mistress in solid
+earnest.
+
+And now we have the story to tell of one of the most marvellous journeys
+ever undertaken. It was made through a thinly inhabited wilderness,
+which to the belief of the empress was to be converted into a populous
+and thriving realm. That the journey might proceed by night as well as
+by day, great piles of wood were prepared at intervals of fifty perches,
+whose leaping flames gave to the high-road a brightness like that of
+day. In six days Smolensk was reached, and in twenty days the old
+Russian capital of Kief, where the procession halted for a season before
+proceeding towards its goal.
+
+As it went on, the whole country became transformed. The deserts were
+suddenly peopled, palaces awaited the train in the trackless wild,
+temporary villages hid the nakedness of the plain, and fireworks at
+night testified to the seeming joy of the populace. Wide roads were
+opened by the army in advance of the cortege, the mountains were
+illuminated as it passed, howling wildernesses were made to appear like
+fertile gardens, and great flocks and herds, gathered from distant
+pastures, delighted the eyes of the empress with the appearance of
+thrift and prosperity as her vehicle drove rapidly along the roads. To
+the charmed eyes of those not "to the manner born" the whole country
+seemed populous and prosperous, the people joyous, the soil fertile, the
+land smiling with abundance. There was no hint to indicate that it was a
+desert covered for the time being by an enamelled carpet.
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON A RUSSIAN FARM.]
+
+The Dnieper reached, the empress and her train passed down that river in
+fifteen splendid galleys, with the pomp of a triumphal procession. It
+was now the month of May, and the banks of the river showed the same
+signs of prosperity as had the sides of the road. At Kaidack the emperor
+Joseph met the empress, having reached Kherson in advance and gone north
+to anticipate her coming. He accompanied her down the stream, looking
+with her on the show of prosperity and populousness which delighted her
+inexperienced eyes, and smiling covertly at the delusion which
+Potemkin's magic had raised, well assured that as soon as she had passed
+silence and desertion would succeed these busy scenes. At a new
+projected town on the way, of which Catharine had, with much ceremony,
+laid the first stone, Joseph was asked to lay the second. He did so,
+afterwards saying of the farcical proceeding, "The Empress of Russia and
+I have finished a very important business in a single day: she has laid
+the first stone of a city, and I have laid the last." He had no doubt
+that, when they had gone, the buildings in which they had slept, the
+villages which they had seen, the wayside herders and flocks, would
+vanish like theatrical scenery, and the country present the dismal
+aspect of a deserted stage.
+
+At length the new city was reached, the magical Kherson. Catharine
+entered it in grand state, under a noble triumphal arch inscribed in
+Greek with the words "The Way to Byzantium." It was a busy city in which
+she found herself. The houses were all inhabited; shops, filled with
+goods, lined the principal streets; people thronged the sidewalks,
+spectators of the entry; luxury of every kind awaited the empress in the
+capital which had arisen for her as by the rubbing of Aladdin's ring,
+and entertainments of the most lavish character were prepared by the
+potent genius to whom all she saw was due. Potemkin hesitated at no
+expense. The journey had cost the empire no less than seven millions of
+rubles, fourteen thousand of which were expended on the throne built for
+the empress in what was named the admiralty of Kherson.
+
+Such was the scenery prepared for one of the most theatrical events the
+world has ever witnessed. It cost the empire dearly, but Potemkin's
+purpose was achieved. He had charmed the empress by causing the desert
+to "blossom like the rose," and after the spectators had passed all sank
+again into silence and emptiness. The new empire of Byzantium remained a
+dream. Turkey had not been consulted in the project, and was not quite
+ready to consent to be dismembered to gratify the whim of empress and
+emperor.
+
+As for the city of Kherson, its site was badly chosen, and its seeming
+prosperity and populousness during the empress's presence quickly passed
+away. The city has remained, but its actual growth has been gradual, and
+it has been thrown into the shade by Odessa, a port founded some years
+later without a single flourish of trumpets, but which has now grown to
+be the fourth city of Russia in size and importance. Of late years
+Kherson has shown some signs of increase, but all we need say further of
+it here is that it has the honor of being the burial-place of the shrewd
+Potemkin, under whose fostering hand it burst into such premature bloom
+in its early days.
+
+
+
+
+_KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND._
+
+
+Of the several nations that made up the Europe of the eighteenth
+century, one, the kingdom of Poland, vanished before the nineteenth
+century began. Destitute of a strong central government, the scene of
+continual anarchy among the turbulent nobles, possessing no national
+frontiers and no national middle class, its population being made up of
+nobles, serfs, and foreigners, it lay at the mercy of the ambitious
+surrounding kingdoms, by which it was finally absorbed. On three
+successive occasions was the territory of the feeble nation divided
+between its foes, the first partition being made in 1772, between
+Russia, Prussia, and Austria; the second in 1793, between Russia and
+Prussia; and the third and final in 1795, in which Russia, Prussia, and
+Austria again took part, all that remained of the country being now
+distributed and the ancient kingdom of Poland effaced from the map of
+Europe.
+
+Only one vigorous attempt was made to save the imperilled realm, that of
+the illustrious Kosciusko, who, though he failed in his patriotic
+purpose, made his name famous as the noblest of the Poles. When he
+appeared at the head of its armies, Poland was in a desperate strait.
+Some of its own nobles had been bought by Russian gold, Russian armies
+had overrun the land, and a Prussian force was marching to their aid.
+At Grodno the Russian general proudly took his seat on that throne which
+he was striving to overthrow. The defenders of Poland had been
+dispersed, their property confiscated, their families reduced to
+poverty. The Russians, swarming through the kingdom, committed the
+greatest excesses, while Warsaw, which had fallen into their hands, was
+governed with arrogant barbarity. Such was the state of affairs when
+some of the most patriotic of the nobles assembled and sent to
+Kosciusko, asking him to put himself at their head.
+
+As a young man this valiant Pole had aided in the war for American
+independence. In 1792 he took part in the war for the defence of his
+native land. But he declared that there could be no hope of success
+unless the peasants were given their liberty. Hitherto they had been
+treated in Poland like slaves. It was with these despised serfs that
+this effort was made.
+
+In 1794 the insurrection broke out. Kosciusko, finding that the country
+was ripe for revolt against its oppressors, hastened from Italy, whither
+he had retired, and appeared at Cracow, where he was hailed as the
+coming deliverer of the land. The only troops in arms were a small force
+of about four thousand in all, who were joined by about three hundred
+peasants armed with scythes. These were soon met by an army of seven
+thousand Russians, whom they put to flight after a sharp engagement.
+
+The news of this battle stirred the Russian general in command at Warsaw
+to active measures. All whom he suspected of favoring the insurrection
+were arrested. The result was different from what he had expected. The
+city blazed into insurrection, two thousand Russians fell before the
+onslaught of the incensed patriots, and their general saved himself only
+by flight.
+
+The outbreak at Warsaw was followed by one at Vilna, the capital of
+Lithuania, the Russians here being all taken prisoners. Three Polish
+regiments mustered into the Russian service deserted to the army of
+their compatriots, and far and wide over the country the flames of
+insurrection spread.
+
+Kosciusko rapidly increased his forces by recruiting the peasantry,
+whose dress he wore and whose food he shared in. But these men
+distrusted the nobles, who had so long oppressed them, while many of the
+latter, eager to retain their valued prerogatives, worked against the
+patriot cause, in which they were aided by King Stanislaus, who had been
+subsidized by Russian gold.
+
+To put down this effort of despair on the part of the Poles, Catharine
+of Russia sent fresh armies to Poland, led by her ablest generals.
+Prussians and Austrians also joined in the movement for enslavement,
+Frederick William of Prussia fighting at the head of his troops against
+the Polish patriot. Kosciusko had established a provisional government,
+and faced his foes boldly in the field. Defeated, he fell back on
+Warsaw, where he valiantly maintained himself until threatened by two
+new Russian armies, whom he marched out to meet, in the hope of
+preventing their junction.
+
+The decisive battle took place at Maciejowice, in October, 1794.
+Kosciusko, though pressed by superior forces, fought with the greatest
+valor and desperation. His men at length, overpowered by numbers, were
+in great part cut to pieces or obliged to yield, while their leader,
+covered with wounds, fell into the hands of his foes. It is said that he
+exclaimed, on seeing all hopes at an end, "Finis Poloniae!" In the words
+of the poet Byron, "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell."
+
+Warsaw still held out. Here all who had escaped from the field took
+refuge, occupying Praga, the eastern suburb of the city, where
+twenty-six thousand Poles, with over one hundred cannon and mortars,
+defended the bridges over the Vistula. Suwarrow, the greatest of the
+Russian generals, was quickly at the city gates. He was weaker, both in
+men and in guns, than the defenders of the city; but with his wonted
+impetuosity he resolved to employ the same tactics which he had more
+than once used against the Turks, and seek to carry the Polish lines at
+the bayonet's point.
+
+After a two days' cannonade, he ordered the assault at daybreak of
+November 4. A desperate conflict continued during the five succeeding
+hours, ending in the carrying of the trenches and the defeat of the
+garrison. The Russians now poured into the suburb, where a scene of
+frightful carnage began. Not only men in arms, but old men, women, and
+children were ruthlessly slaughtered, the wooden houses set on fire, the
+bridges broken down, and the throng of helpless people who sought to
+escape into the city driven ruthlessly into the waters of the Vistula.
+In this butchery not only ten thousand soldiers, but twelve thousand
+citizens of every age and sex were remorselessly slain.
+
+On the following day the city capitulated, and on the 6th the Russian
+victors marched into its streets. It was, as Kosciusko had said, "the
+end of Poland." The troops were disarmed, the officers were seized as
+prisoners, and the feeble king was nominally raised again to the head of
+the kingdom, so soon to be swept from existence. For a year Suwarrow
+held a military court in Warsaw, far eclipsing the king in the splendor
+of his surroundings. By the close of 1795 all was at an end. The small
+remnant left of the kingdom was parted between the greedy aspirants, and
+on the 1st of January, 1796, Warsaw was handed over to Prussia, to whose
+share of the spoils it appertained.
+
+In this arbitrary manner was a kingdom which had an area of nearly three
+hundred thousand square miles and a population of twelve millions, and
+whose history dated back to the tenth century, removed from the map of
+the world, while the heavy hand of oppression fell upon all who dared to
+speak or act in its behalf. One bold stroke for freedom was afterwards
+made, but it ended as before, and Poland is now but a name.
+
+
+
+
+_SUWARROW THE UNCONQUERABLE._
+
+
+Of men born for battle, to whose ears the roar of cannon and the clash
+of sabres are the only music, the smoke of conflict their native
+atmosphere, Suwarrow (Suvarof, to give him his Russian name) stands
+among the foremost. A little, wrinkled, stooping man, five feet four
+inches in height and sickly in appearance, he was the last to whom one
+would have looked for great deeds in war or mighty exploits in the
+embattled field. Yet he had the soul of a hero in his diminutive frame,
+and even as a boy the passion for military glory fired his heart, Caesar
+and Charles XII. of Sweden (from which country his ancestors came) being
+the heroes worshipped by his youthful imagination. Born in 1729, he
+entered the army as a private at seventeen, but rapidly rose from the
+ranks, made himself famous in the Seven Years' War and in the Polish war
+of 1768-71, and from that time until death put an end to his career was
+almost constantly in the field. Napoleon, against whose armies he fought
+in his later days, was not more enraptured with the breath of battle
+than was this war-dog of the Russian army.
+
+Diminutive and sickly as he looked, Suwarrow was strong and hardy, and
+so inured to hardship that the severity of the Russian climate failed
+to affect his vigorous frame. Disdaining luxury, and ignoring comfort,
+he lived like the soldiers under his command, preferring to sleep on a
+truss of hay, and accepting every privation which his men might be
+called on to endure. He was a man of high intelligence, a clever
+linguist, and a diligent reader even when on campaign, and religiously
+seems to have been very devout, being ready to kneel and pray before
+every wayside image, even when the roads were deep with mud.
+
+In his ordinary manners he carried eccentricity to an extravagant
+extent, was brusque and curt in speech, often to the verge of insult,
+laconic in his despatches, and--a soldier in grain--treated with
+stinging sarcasm all whose lack of activity or of courage invited his
+contempt. It was by this spirit that he incurred the enmity of the
+Emperor Paul, when, in his half-mad thirst for change, the latter
+attempted to change the native dress of the Russian soldier for the
+ancient attire of Germany. His fair locks, which the Russian was used to
+wash every morning, he was now bidden to bedaub with grease and flour,
+while he energetically cursed the black spatterdashes which it took him
+an hour to button every morning. Orders to establish these novelties
+among his men were sent to Suwarrow, then in Italy with the army, the
+directions being accompanied with little sticks for models of the tails
+and side curls in which the soldiers' hair was to be arranged. The old
+warrior's lips curled contemptuously on seeing these absurd devices, and
+he growled out in his curt fashion, "Hair-powder is not gunpowder;
+curls are not cannon; and tails are not bayonets."
+
+This sarcastic utterance, which forms a sort of rhyming verse in the
+Russian tongue, got abroad, and spread from mouth to mouth through the
+army like a choice morsel of wit. The czar, to whose ears it came, heard
+it with deep offence. Soon after Suwarrow was recalled from the army, on
+another plea, and on his return to St. Petersburg was not permitted to
+see the emperor's face. This injustice may have been a cause of his
+death, which occurred shortly after his return, on May 18, 1800. No
+courtier of the Russian court, and no diplomatist, except the English
+ambassador, followed the war-worn veteran to the grave.
+
+Suwarrow was the idol of his men, whose favorite title for him was
+"Father Suvarof," and who were ready at command to follow him to the
+cannon's mouth. In all his long career he never lost a battle, and only
+once in his life of war acted on the defensive. With a superb faith in
+his own star, the inspiration of the moment served him for counsel, and
+rapidity of movement and boldness and dash in the onset brought him many
+a victory where deliberation might have led to defeat.
+
+A striking instance of this, and of his usual brusque eccentricity, took
+place in 1799 in Italy, where Suwarrow was placed in command of all the
+allied troops. This raising of a Russian to the supreme command excited
+the jealousy of the Austrian generals, and they called a council of war
+to examine his plans for the campaign. The members of the council, the
+youngest first, gave their views as to the conduct of the war. Suwarrow
+listened in grim silence until they had all spoken, and had turned to
+him for his comment on their views. The wrinkled veteran drew to himself
+a slate, and made on it two lines.
+
+"Here, gentlemen," he said, pointing to one line, "are the French, and
+here are the Russians. The latter will march against the former and beat
+them." This said, he rubbed out the French line. Then, looking up at his
+surprised auditors, he curtly remarked, "This is all my plan. The
+council is ended."
+
+In war he is said to have been averse to the shedding of blood, and to
+have been at heart humane and merciful. Yet this hardly accords with the
+story of his exploits, it being said that twenty-six thousand Turks were
+killed in the storming of Ismail, while in that of Praga at Warsaw more
+than twenty thousand Poles were massacred.
+
+Such was the character of one of the men who aided to make glorious the
+reign of Catharine of Russia, and whose merit she--unlike her weak son
+Paul--was fully competent to appreciate. With this estimate of the
+greatest soldier Russia has ever produced, and one of the ablest
+generals of modern times, we may briefly describe some of the most
+striking exploits of Suwarrow's career.
+
+In 1789, during one of the interminable wars against Turkey, in which on
+this occasion the Austrians took part with the Russians, the Prince of
+Coburg was at the head of an Austrian force, which he was strikingly
+incapable of commanding. The prince, advancing with sublime
+deliberation, found himself suddenly threatened by a considerable
+Turkish army. Filled with alarm at the sight of the enemy, he sent a
+hasty appeal to Suwarrow to come to his aid.
+
+The Russian general had just rejoined his army after recovering from a
+wound. The news of Coburg's peril reached him at Belat, in Moldavia,
+between forty and fifty miles away, and these miles of mountains,
+ravines, and almost impassable wilds. Suwarrow at once broke camp, and
+with his usual impetuosity led his army over its difficult route,
+reaching the Austrians in less than thirty-six hours after receiving the
+news.
+
+It was five o'clock in the evening when he arrived. At eleven he sent
+his plan of attack to the prince. An assault on the enemy was to be made
+at two in the morning. Coburg, who had never dreamed of such rapidity of
+movement and such impetuosity in action, was utterly astounded. In
+complete bewilderment, he sought Suwarrow at his quarters, going there
+three times without finding him. The supreme command belonged to him as
+the older general, but he had the sense not to claim it, and to act as a
+subordinate to his abler ally. In an hour after the advance began the
+allied armies were in the Turkish camp, and the Turks, though much
+outnumbering their assailants, were in full flight. All their stores, a
+hundred standards, and seventy pieces of artillery fell into the hands
+of the victors.
+
+Suwarrow returned to Moldavia, and Coburg looked quietly on while the
+Turks collected a new army. In less than two months he found himself
+confronted by a hundred thousand men. In new alarm, he hastily sent
+again to Suwarrow for aid.
+
+In two days the Russian army had reached the Austrian camp, which the
+enemy was just about to attack. The Turks had neglected to fortify their
+camp before offering battle. Of this oversight the keen-eyed Russian
+took instant advantage, attacked them in their unfinished trenches, and,
+as before, took their camp by storm,--though after a more stubborn
+defence than in the previous instance. The Turkish army was again
+dispersed, immense booty was taken, and Suwarrow received for his valor
+the title of a count of the Austrian empire, while the empress Catharine
+gave him in reward the honorable surname of Rimniksky, from the name of
+the river on which the battle had been fought.
+
+The next great exploit of Suwarrow was performed at Ismail, a Turkish
+town which Potemkin had been besieging for seven months. The prime
+minister at length grew impatient at the delay, and determined on more
+effective measures. Living in a luxury in his camp that contrasted
+strangely with the sparse conditions of Suwarrow, Potemkin was
+surrounded by courtiers and ladies, who made strenuous efforts to
+furnish the great man with amusement. One of the ladies, handling a pack
+of cards, from which she laughingly pretended to be able to read the
+secrets of destiny, proclaimed that he would be in possession of the
+town at the end of three weeks.
+
+"You are not bad at prediction," said Potemkin, with a smile, "but I
+have a method of divination far more infallible. My prediction is that I
+will have the town in three days."
+
+He at once sent orders to Suwarrow, who was at Galatz, to come and take
+the town.
+
+The obedient warrior, who seemed to be always at somebody's beck and
+call, quickly appeared and surveyed the situation. His first steps
+seemed to indicate that he proposed to continue the siege, the troops
+being formed into a besieging army of about forty thousand men, while
+the Russian fleet was ordered up to the town. But the deliberation of a
+siege never accorded with Suwarrow's ardent humor. His real purpose was
+to take the place by storm. He had taken Otchakof in this way the
+previous year with heavy loss, and with the slaughter of twenty thousand
+Turks. He now, on the 21st of September, twice summoned the city to
+surrender, threatening the people with the fate of Otchakof. They
+refused to yield, and the assault began at four o'clock of the following
+morning.
+
+Battalion after battalion was hurled against the walls: the slaughter
+from the Turkish fire was frightful, but the stern commander hurled ever
+new hosts into the pit of death, and about eight o'clock the summit of
+the walls was reached. But the work was yet only begun. The city was
+defended street by street, house by house. It was noon before the
+Russians, fighting their way through a desperate resistance, reached the
+market-place, where were gathered a body of the Tartars of the Crimea.
+For two hours these fought fiercely for their lives, and after they had
+all fallen the Turks kept up the conflict with equal desperation in the
+streets. At length the gates were thrown open and Suwarrow sent his
+cavalry into the city, who charged through the streets, cutting down all
+whom they met. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the butchery
+ended, after which the city was given up for three days to the mercy of
+the troops. According to the official report, the Turks lost forty-three
+thousand in killed and prisoners, the Russians forty-five hundred in
+all; the one estimate probably as much too large as the other was too
+small.
+
+We may conclude with the story of Suwarrow's career in Italy and
+Switzerland against the armies of the French republic. The plan which
+the Russian conqueror had marked out on the slate for the Austrian
+generals was literally fulfilled. In less than three months he had
+cleared Lombardy and Piedmont of the troops of France. He forced the
+passage of the Adda against Moreau and his army, compelling the French
+to abandon Milan, which he entered in triumph. His next success was at
+Turin, a depot of French supplies, towards which Moreau was hastily
+advancing. The Russians took the city by surprise, driving the French
+garrison into the citadel, and capturing three hundred cannons and
+enormous quantities of muskets, ammunition, and military stores. The
+French army was saved from ruin only by the great ability of its
+commander, who led it to Genoa in four days over a mountain path.
+
+The czar Paul rewarded his victorious general with the honorable
+designation of Italienski, or the Italian, and, in his grandiloquent
+fashion, issued a ukase commanding all people to regard Suwarrow as the
+greatest commander the world had ever known.
+
+We cannot describe the whole course of events. Other victories were won
+in Italy, but finally Suwarrow was weakened by the jealousy of the
+Austrians, who withdrew their troops, and subsequently was obliged to go
+to the relief of his fellow-commander, Korsakof, who, with twenty
+thousand men, had imprudently allowed himself to be hemmed in by a
+French army at Zurich. He finally forced his way through the enemy,
+losing all his artillery and half his host.
+
+Of this Suwarrow knew nothing, as he made his way across the Alps to the
+aid of the beleaguered general. He attempted to force his way over the
+St. Gothard pass, meeting with fierce opposition at every point. There
+was a sharp fight at the Devil's Bridge, which the French blew up, but
+failed to keep back Suwarrow and his men, who crossed the rocky gorge of
+the Unerloch, dashed through the foaming Reuss, and drove the French
+from their post of vantage.
+
+At length, with his men barefoot, his provisions almost exhausted, the
+Russian general reached Muotta, to find to his chagrin that Korsakof had
+been defeated and put to flight. He at once began his retreat, followed
+in force by Massena, who was driven off by the rear-guard. On October 1
+Suwarrow reached Glarus. Here he rested till the 4th, then crossed the
+Panixer Mountains through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine,
+which he reached on the 10th, having lost two hundred of his men and
+all his beasts of burden over the precipices. Thus ended this
+extraordinary march, which had cost Suwarrow all his artillery, nearly
+all his horses, and a third of his men.
+
+These losses in the Russian armies stirred the czar to immeasurable
+rage. All the missing officers--who were prisoners in France--were
+branded as deserters, and Suwarrow was deprived of his command,
+ostensibly for his failure, but largely for the sarcasm already
+mentioned. He returned home to die, having experienced what a misfortune
+it is for a great man to be at the mercy of a fool in authority.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RETREAT OF NAPOLEON'S GRAND ARMY._
+
+
+In the spring of 1812 Napoleon reached the frontiers of Russia at the
+head of the greatest army that had ever been under his command, it
+embracing half a million of men. It was not an army of Frenchmen,
+however, since much more than half the total force was made up of
+Germans and soldiers of other nationalities. In addition to the soldiery
+was a multitude of non-combatants and other incumbrances, which
+Napoleon, deviating from his usual custom, allowed to follow the troops.
+These were made up of useless aids to the pomp and luxury of the emperor
+and his officers, and an incredible number of private vehicles, women,
+servants, and others, who served but to create confusion, and to consume
+the army stores, of which provision had been made for only a short
+campaign.
+
+Thus, dragging its slow length along, the army, on June 24, 1812,
+crossed the Niemen River and entered upon Russian soil. From emperor to
+private, all were inspired with exaggerated hopes of victory, and looked
+soon to see the mighty empire of the north prostrate before the genius
+of all-conquering France. Had the vision of that army, as it was to
+recross the Niemen within six months, risen upon their minds, it would
+have been dismissed as a nightmare of false and monstrous mien.
+
+Onward into Russia wound the vast and hopeful mass, without a battle and
+without sight of a foe. The Russians were retreating and drawing their
+foes deeper and deeper into the heart of their desolate land. Battles
+were not necessary; the country itself fought for Russia. Food was not
+to be had from the land, which was devastated in their track. Burning
+cities and villages lit up their path. The carriages and wagons, even
+many of the cannon, had to be left behind. The forced marches which
+Napoleon made in the hope of overtaking the Russians forced him to
+abandon much of his supplies, while men and horses sank from fatigue and
+hunger. The decaying carcasses of ten thousand horses already poisoned
+the air.
+
+At length Moscow was approached. Here the Russian leaders were forced by
+the sentiment of the army and the people to strike one blow in defence
+of their ancient capital. A desperate encounter took place at Borodino,
+two days' march from the city, in which Napoleon triumphed, but at a
+fearful price. Forty thousand men had fallen, of whom the wounded nearly
+all died through want and neglect. When Moscow was reached, it proved to
+be deserted. Napoleon had won the empty shell of a city, and was as far
+as ever from the conquest of Russia.
+
+It is not our purpose here to give the startling story of the burning of
+Moscow, the sacrifice of a city to the god of war. Though this is one of
+the most thrilling events in the history of Russia, it has already been
+told in this series.[1] We are concerned at present solely with the
+retreat of the grand army from the ashes of the Muscovite capital, the
+most dreadful retreat in the annals of war.
+
+Napoleon lingered amid the ruins of the ancient city until winter was
+near at hand, hoping still that the emperor Alexander would sue for
+peace. No suit came. He offered terms himself, and they were not even
+honored with a reply. A deeply disappointed man, the autocrat of Europe
+marched out of Moscow on October 19 and began his frightful homeward
+march. He had waited much too long. The Russian armies, largely
+increased in numbers, shut him out from every path but the wasted one by
+which he had come, a highway marked by the ashes of burnt towns and the
+decaying corpses of men and animals.
+
+On November 6, winter suddenly set in. The supplies had largely been
+consumed, the land was empty of food, famine alternated with cold to
+crush the retreating host, and death in frightful forms hovered over
+their path. The horses, half fed and worn out, died by thousands. Most
+of the cavalry had to go afoot; the booty brought from Moscow was
+abandoned as valueless; even much of the artillery was left behind. The
+cold grew more intense. A deep snow covered the plain, through whose
+white peril they had to drag their weary feet. Arms were flung away as
+useless weights, flight was the only thought, and but a tithe of the
+army remained in condition to defend the rest.
+
+The retreat of the grand army became one of incredible distress and
+suffering. Over the seemingly endless Russian steppes, from whose
+snow-clad level only rose here and there the ruins of a deserted
+village, the freezing and starving soldiers made their miserable way.
+Wan, hollow-eyed, gaunt, clad in garments through which the biting cold
+pierced their flesh, they dragged wearily onward, fighting with one
+another for the flesh of a dead horse, ready to commit murder for the
+shadow of food, and finally sinking in death in the snows of that
+interminable plain. Each morning, some of those who had stretched their
+limbs round the bivouac fires failed to rise. The victims of the night
+were often revealed only by the small mounds of fallen snow which had
+buried them as they slept.
+
+That this picture may not be thought overdrawn, we shall relate an
+anecdote told of Prince Emilius of Darmstadt. He had fallen asleep in
+the snow, and in order to protect him from the keen north wind four of
+his Hessian dragoons screened him during the night with their cloaks.
+The prince arose from his cold couch in the morning to find his faithful
+guardians still in the position they had occupied during the
+night,--frozen to death.
+
+Maddened with famine and frost, men were seen to spring, with wildly
+exulting cries, into the flames of burning houses. Of those that fell
+into the hands of the Russian boors, many were stripped of their
+clothing and chased to death through the snow. Smolensk, which the army
+had passed in its glory, it now reached in its gloom. The city was
+deserted and half burned. Most of the cannon had been abandoned, food
+and ammunition were lacking, and no halt was possible. The despairing
+army pushed on.
+
+Death followed the fugitives in other forms than those of frost and
+hunger. The Russians, who had avoided the army in its advance, harassed
+it continually in its retreat. From all directions Russian troops
+marched upon the worn-out fugitives, grimly determined that not a man of
+them should leave Russia if they could prevent. The intrepid Ney, with
+the men still capable of fight, formed the rear-guard, and kept at bay
+their foes. This service was one of imminent peril. Cut off at Smolensk
+from the main body, only Ney's vigilance saved his men from destruction.
+During the night he led them rapidly along the banks of the Dnieper,
+repulsing the Russian corps that sought to cut off his retreat, and
+joined the army again.
+
+The Beresina at length was reached. This river must be crossed. But the
+frightful chill, which hitherto had pursued the fleeing host, now
+inopportunely decreased, a thaw broke the frozen surface of the stream,
+and the fugitives gazed with horror on masses of floating ice where they
+had dreamed of a solid pathway for their feet. The slippery state of the
+banks added to the difficulty, while on the opposite side a Russian army
+commanded the passage with its artillery, and in the rear the roar of
+cannon signalled the approach of another army. All seemed lost, and
+only the good fortune which had so often befriended him now saved
+Napoleon and his host.
+
+For at this critical moment a fresh army corps, which had been left
+behind in his advance, came to the emperor's aid, and the Russian
+general who disputed the passage, deceived by the French movements,
+withdrew to another point on the stream. Taking instant advantage of the
+opportunity, Napoleon threw two bridges across the river, over which the
+able-bodied men of the army safely made their way.
+
+After them came the vast host of non-combatants that formed the rear,
+choking the bridges with their multitude. As they struggled to cross,
+the pursuing Russian army appeared and opened with artillery upon the
+helpless mass, ploughing long red lanes of carnage through its midst.
+One bridge broke down, and all rushed to the other. Multitudes were
+forced into the stream, while the Russian cannon played remorselessly
+upon the struggling and drowning mass. For two days the passage had
+continued, and on the morning of the third a considerable number of sick
+and wounded soldiers, sutlers, women, and children still remained
+behind, when word reached them that the bridges were to be burned. A
+fearful rush now took place. Some succeeded in crossing, but the fire
+ran rapidly along the timbers, and the despairing multitude leaped into
+the icy river or sought to plunge through the mounting flames. When the
+ice thawed in the spring twelve thousand dead bodies were found on the
+shores of the stream. Sixteen thousand of the fugitives remained
+prisoners in Russian hands.
+
+This day of disaster was the climax of the frightful retreat. But as
+the army pressed onward the temperature again fell, until it reached
+twenty-seven degrees below zero, and the old story of "frozen to death"
+was resumed. Napoleon, fearing to be taken prisoner in Germany if the
+truth should become known, left his army on December 5, and hurried
+towards Paris with all speed, leaving the news of the disaster behind in
+his flight. Wilna was soon after reached by the army, but could not be
+held by the exhausted troops, and, with its crowded magazines and the
+wealth in its treasury, fell into the hands of the Russians.
+
+During this season of disaster the Austrian and Prussian commanders left
+behind to guard the route contrived to spare their troops.
+Schwarzenberg, the Austrian commander, retreated towards Warsaw and left
+the Russian armies free to act against the French. The Prussians, who
+had been engaged in the siege of Riga, might have covered the fleeing
+host; but York, their commander, entered into a truce with the Russians
+and remained stationary. They had been forced to join the French, and
+took the first opportunity to abandon their hated allies.
+
+A place of safety was at length reached, but the grand army was
+represented by a miserable fragment of its mighty host. Of the
+half-million who crossed the Russian frontier, but eighty thousand
+returned. Of those who had reached Moscow, the meagre remnant numbered
+scarcely twenty thousand in all.
+
+
+
+
+_THE DEATH-STRUGGLE OF POLAND._
+
+
+The French revolution of 1830 precipitated a similar one in Poland. The
+rule of Russia in that country had been one of outrage and oppression.
+In the words of the Poles, "personal liberty, which had been solemnly
+guaranteed, was violated; the prisons were crowded; courts-martial were
+appointed to decide in civil cases, and imposed infamous punishments
+upon citizens whose only crime was that of having attempted to save from
+corruption the spirit and the character of the nation."
+
+On the 29th of November the people sprang to arms in Warsaw and the
+Russians were driven out. Soon after a dictator was chosen, an army
+collected, and Russian Poland everywhere rose in revolt.
+
+It was a hopeless struggle into which the Polish patriots had entered.
+In all Europe there was not a hand lifted in their aid. Prussia and
+Austria stood in a threatening attitude, each with an army of sixty
+thousand men upon the frontiers, ready to march to the aid of Russia if
+any disturbance took place in their Polish provinces. Russia invaded the
+country with an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, a force
+more than double that which Poland was able to raise. And the Polish
+army was commanded by a titled incapable, Prince Radzivil, chosen
+because he had a great name, regardless of his lack of ability as a
+soldier. Chlopicki, his aide, was a skilled commander, but he fought
+with his hands tied.
+
+On the 19th of February, 1831, the two armies met in battle, and began a
+desperate struggle which lasted with little cessation for six days.
+Warsaw lay in the rear of the Polish army. Behind it flowed the Vistula,
+with but a single bridge for escape in case of defeat. Victory or death
+seemed the alternatives of the patriot force.
+
+[Illustration: RUSSIAN PEASANTS.]
+
+The struggle was for the Alder Wood, the key of the position. For the
+possession of this forest the fight was hand to hand. Again and again it
+was lost and retaken. On the 25th, the final day of battle, it was held
+by the Poles. Forty-five thousand in number, they were confronted by a
+Russian army of one hundred thousand men. Diebitsch, the Russian
+commander, determined to win the Alder Wood at any cost. Chlopicki gave
+orders to defend it to the last extremity.
+
+The struggle that succeeded was desperate. By sheer force of numbers the
+Russians made themselves masters of the wood. Then Chlopicki, putting
+himself at the head of his grenadiers, charged into the forest depths,
+driving out its holders at the bayonet's point. Their retreat threw the
+whole Russian line into confusion. Now was the critical moment for a
+cavalry charge. Chlopicki sent orders to the cavalry chief, but he
+refused to move. This loss of an opportunity for victory maddened the
+valiant leader. "Go and ask Radzivil," he said to the aides who asked
+for orders; "for me, I seek only death." Plunging into the ranks of the
+enemy, he was wounded by a shell, and borne secretly from the field. But
+the news of this disaster ran through the ranks and threw the whole army
+into consternation.
+
+The fall of the gallant Chlopicki changed the tide of battle. Fiercely
+struggling still, the Poles were driven from the wood and hurled back
+upon the Vistula. A battalion of recruits crossed the river on the ice
+and carried terror into Warsaw. Crowds of peasants, heaps of dead and
+dying, choked the approach to Praga, the outlying suburb. Night fell
+upon the scene of disorder. The houses of Praga were fired, and flames
+lit up the frightful scene. Groans of agony and shrieks of despair
+filled the air. The streets were choked with debris, but workmen from
+Warsaw rushed out with axes, cleared away the ruin, and left the
+passages free.
+
+Inspirited by this, the infantry formed in line and checked the charge
+of the Russian horse. The Albert cuirassiers rode through the first
+Polish line, but soon found their horses floundering in mud, and
+themselves attacked by lancers and pikemen on all sides. Of the
+brilliant and daring corps scarce a man escaped.
+
+That day cost the Poles five thousand men. Of the Russians more than ten
+thousand fell. Radzivil, fearing that the single bridge would be carried
+away by the broken ice, gave orders to retreat across the stream.
+Diebitsch withdrew into the wood. And thus the first phase of the
+struggle for the freedom of Poland came to an end.
+
+This affair was followed by a striking series of Polish victories. The
+ice in the Vistula was running free, the river overflowed its banks, and
+for a month the main bodies of the armies were at rest. But General
+Dwernicki, at the head of three thousand Polish cavalry, signalized the
+remainder of February by a series of brilliant exploits, attacking and
+dispersing with his small force twenty thousand of the enemy.
+
+Radzivil, whose incompetency had grown evident, was now removed, and
+Skrzynecki, a much abler leader, was chosen in his place. He was not
+long in showing his skill and daring. On the night of March 30 the Praga
+bridge was covered with straw and the army marched noiselessly across.
+At daybreak, in the midst of a thick fog, it fell on a body of sleeping
+Russians, who had not dreamed of such a movement. Hurled back in
+disorder and dismay, they were met by a division which had been posted
+to cut off their retreat. The rout was complete. Half the corps was
+destroyed or taken, and the remainder fled in terror through the forest
+depths.
+
+Before the day ended the Poles came upon Rosen's division, fifteen
+thousand in number, and strongly posted. Yet the impetuous onslaught of
+the Poles swept the field. The Russians were driven back in utter rout,
+with the loss of two thousand men, six thousand prisoners, and large
+quantities of cannon and arms. The Poles lost but three hundred men in
+this brilliant success. During the next day the pursuit continued, and
+five thousand more prisoners were taken. So disheartened were the
+Russian troops by these reverses that when attacked on April 10 at the
+village of Iganie they scarcely attempted to defend themselves. The
+flower of the Russian infantry, the _lions of Varna_, as they had been
+called since the Turkish war, laid down their arms, tore the eagles from
+their shakos, and gave themselves up as prisoners of war. Twenty-five
+hundred were taken.
+
+What immediately followed may be told in a few words. Skrzynecki failed
+to follow up his remarkable success, and lost valuable time, in which
+the Russians recovered from their dismay. The brave Dwernicki, after
+routing a force of nine thousand with two thousand men, crossed the
+frontier and was taken prisoner by the Austrians, who had made no
+objection to its being crossed by the Russians. And, as if nature were
+fighting against Poland, the cholera, which had crossed from India to
+Russia and infected the Russian troops, was communicated to the Poles at
+Iganie, and soon spread throughout their ranks.
+
+The climax in this suicidal war came on the 26th of May, when the whole
+Russian army, led by General Diebitsch, advanced upon the Poles. During
+the preceding night the Polish army had retreated across the river
+Narew, but, by some unexplained error, had left Lubienski's corps
+behind. On this gallant corps, drawn up in front of the town of
+Ostrolenka, the host of Russians fell. Flanked by the Cossacks, who
+spread out in clouds of horsemen on each wing, the cavalry retreated
+through the town, followed by the infantry, the 4th regiment of the
+line, which formed the rear-guard, fighting step by step as it slowly
+fell back.
+
+Across the bridges poured the retreating Poles. The Russians followed
+the rear-guard hotly into the town. Soon the houses were in flames.
+Disorder reigned in the streets. The fight continued in the midst of the
+conflagration. Russian infantry took possession of the houses adjoining
+the river and fired on the retreating mass. Artillery corps rushed to
+the river bank and planted their batteries to sweep the bridges. All the
+avenues of escape were choked by the columns of the invading force.
+
+The 4th regiment, which had been left alone in the town, was in imminent
+peril of capture, but at this moment of danger it displayed an
+indomitable spirit. With closed ranks it charged with the bayonet on the
+crowded mass before it, rent a crimson avenue through its midst, and
+cleared a passage to the bridges over heaps of the dead. Over the
+quaking timbers rushed the gallant Poles, followed closely by the
+Russian grenadiers. The Polish cannon swept the bridge, but the gunners
+were picked off by sharp-shooters and stretched in death beside their
+guns. On the curving left bank eighty Russian cannon were planted, whose
+fire protected the crossing troops.
+
+Meanwhile the bulk of the Polish army lay unsuspecting in its camp.
+Skrzynecki, the commander, resting easy in the belief that all his men
+were across, heard the distant firing with unconcern. Suddenly the
+imminence of the peril was brought to his attention. Rushing from his
+tent, and springing upon his horse, he galloped madly through the
+ranks, shouting wildly, as he passed from column to column, "Ho!
+Rybinski! Ho! Malachowski! Forward! forward, all!"
+
+The troops sprang to their feet; the forming battalions rushed forward
+in disorder; from end to end of the line rushed the generalissimo, the
+other officers hurrying to his aid. Charge after charge was made on the
+Russians who had crossed the stream. As if driven by frenzy, the Poles
+fell on their foes with swords and pikes. Singing the Warsaw hymn, the
+officers rushed to the front. The lancers charged boldly, but their
+horses sank in the marshy soil, and they fell helpless before the
+Russian fire.
+
+The day passed; night fell; the field of battle was strewn thick with
+the dead and dying. Only a part of the Russian army had succeeded in
+crossing. Skrzynecki held the field, but he had lost seven thousand men.
+The Russians, of whom more than ten thousand had fallen, recrossed the
+river during the night. But they commanded the passage of the stream,
+and the Polish commander gave orders for a retreat on Warsaw, sadly
+repeating, as he entered his carriage, Kosciusko's famous words, "Finis
+Poloniae."
+
+The end indeed was approaching. The resources of Poland were limited,
+those of Russia were immense. New armies trebly replaced all Russian
+losses. Field-Marshal Paskievitch, the new commander, at the head of new
+forces, determined to cross the Vistula and assail Warsaw on the left
+bank of the stream, instead of attacking its suburb of Praga and
+seeking to force a passage across the river at that point, as on former
+occasions.
+
+The march of the Russians was a difficult and dangerous one. Heavy rains
+had made the roads almost impassable, while streams everywhere
+intersected the country. To transport a heavy park of artillery and the
+immense supply and baggage train for an army of seventy thousand men,
+through such a country, was an almost impossible task, particularly in
+view of the fact that the cholera pursued it on its march, and the sick
+and dying proved an almost fatal encumbrance.
+
+Had it been attacked under such circumstances by the Polish army, it
+might have been annihilated. But Skrzynecki remained immovable, although
+his troops cried hotly for "battle! battle!" whenever he appeared. The
+favorable moment was lost. The Russians crossed the Vistula on floating
+bridges, and marched in compact array upon the Polish capital.
+
+And now clamor broke out everywhere. Riots in Warsaw proclaimed the
+popular discontent. A dictator was appointed, and preparations to defend
+the city to the last extremity were made. But at the last moment twenty
+thousand men were sent out to collect supplies for the threatened city,
+leaving only thirty-five thousand for its defence. The Russians,
+meanwhile, had been reinforced by thirty thousand men, making their army
+one hundred and twenty thousand strong, while in cannon they outnumbered
+the Poles three to one.
+
+Such was the state of affairs in beleaguered Warsaw on that fatal 6th of
+September when the Russian general, taking advantage of the weakening
+of the patriot army, ordered a general assault.
+
+At daybreak the attack began with a concentrated fire from two hundred
+guns. The troops, who had been well plied with brandy, rushed in a
+torrent upon the battered walls, and swarmed into the suburb of Wola,
+driving its garrison into the church, where the carnage continued until
+none were left to resist.
+
+From Wola the attack was directed, about noon, upon the suburb of
+Czyste. This was defended by forty guns, which made havoc in the Russian
+ranks, while two battalions of the 4th regiment, rushing upon them in
+their disorder, strove to drive them back and wrest Wola from their
+hands. The effort was fruitless, strong reinforcements coming to the
+Russian aid.
+
+Through the blood-strewn streets of the city the struggle continued,
+success favoring now the Poles, now the Russians. About five in the
+afternoon the tide of battle turned decisively in favor of the Russians.
+A shower of shells from the Russian batteries had fired the houses of
+Czyste, within whose flame-lit streets a hand-to-hand struggle went on.
+The famous 4th regiment, intrenched in the cemetery, defended itself
+valiantly, but was driven back by the spread of the flames. Night fell,
+but the conflict continued. The dawn of the following day saw the city
+at the mercy of the Russian host. The twenty thousand men sent out to
+forage were still absent. Nothing remained but surrender, and at nine in
+the evening the news of the capitulation was brought to the army, to
+whom orders to retire on Praga were given.
+
+Thus ended the final struggle for the freedom of Poland. The story of
+what followed it is not our purpose to tell. The mild Alexander was no
+longer on the Russian throne. The stern Nicholas had replaced him, and
+fearful was his revenge. For the crime of patriotism Poland was
+decimated, thousands of its noblest citizens being transported to the
+Caucasus and Siberia. The remnant of separate existence possessed by
+Poland was overthrown, and it was made a province of the Russian empire.
+Even the teaching of the Polish language was forbidden, the youth of the
+nation being commanded to learn and speak the Russian tongue. As for the
+persecution and suffering which fell upon the Poles as a nation, it is
+too sad a story to be here told. There is still a Polish people, but a
+Poland no more.
+
+
+
+
+_SCHAMYL THE HERO OF CIRCASSIA._
+
+
+In the region lying between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea rise the
+rugged Caucasian Mountains, a mighty wall of rock which there divides
+the continents of Europe and Asia. Monarch of those lofty hills towers
+the tall peak of Elbrus, called by the natives "the great spirit of the
+mountains." Farther east Kasbek lifts its lofty summit, and at a lower
+level the whole jagged line, "the thousand-peaked Caucasus," rises into
+view. Below these a lower range, dark with forests, marks its outline on
+the snowy summits beyond. Fruitful clearings appear to the height of
+five thousand feet on the western slopes; garden terraces mount the
+eastward face, and the valleys, green with meadows or golden with grain,
+are dotted with clusters of cottages. Sheep and goats browse in great
+numbers on the hill-sides; lower down the camel and buffalo feed; herds
+of horses roam half wild through the glades, and from the higher rocks
+the chamois looks boldly down on the inhabited realms below.
+
+In these mountain fastnesses dwells a race of bold and liberty-loving
+mountaineers who have preserved their freedom through all the historic
+eras, yielding only at last, after years of valiant resistance, when the
+whole power of the Russian empire was brought to bear upon them in
+their wilds. For years the heroic Schamyl, their unconquerable chief,
+braved his foes, again and again he escaped from their toils or hurled
+them back in defeat, and for a quarter of a century he defied all the
+power of Russia, yielding only when driven to his final lair.
+
+In the _aoul_ or village of Himri, perched like an eagle's nest high on
+a projecting rock, this famous chief was born in the year 1797. The only
+access to this high-seated stronghold was by a narrow path winding
+several hundred feet up the slope, while a triple wall, flanked by high
+towers, further defended it, and the overhanging brow of the mountain
+guarded it above. Such is the character of one of the strongholds of
+this mountain land, and such an example of the difficulties its foes had
+to overcome.
+
+There are no finer horsemen than the daring Circassian mountaineers, who
+are ready to dash at full speed up or down precipitous steeps, to leap
+chasms, or to swim raging torrents. In an instant, also, they can
+discharge their weapons, unslinging the gun when at full gallop, firing
+upon the foe, and as quickly returning it to its place. They can rest
+suspended on the side of the horse, leap to the ground to pick up a
+fallen weapon, and bound into the saddle again without a halt. And such
+is the precision of their aim that they are able to strike the smallest
+mark while riding at full speed.
+
+Such were some of the arts in which Schamyl was trained, and in which he
+became signally expert. In the hunt, the trial of skill, all the labors
+and sports of the youthful mountaineers, he was an adept, and so valiant
+and resourceful that his admiring countrymen at length chose him as
+their Iman, or governor, during the defence of their country against the
+Russian invaders.
+
+The first battle in which Schamyl engaged was behind the walls of his
+native village. Himri, well situated as it was, was hurled into ruin by
+the artillery of the foe, and among its prostrate defenders lay Schamyl,
+with two balls through his body. He was left by the enemy as dead, and
+in after-years the mountaineers looked upon his escape and recovery as
+due to miracle.
+
+Schamyl was thirty-seven years of age when he became leader of the
+tribes. Of middle stature, with fair hair, gray eyes shadowed with thick
+brows, a Grecian nose, small mouth, and unusually fair complexion, he
+was one of the handsomest and most distinguished in appearance of the
+mountaineers. He was erect in carriage, light and active in tread, and
+had a natural nobility of air and aspect. His manner was calmly
+commanding, while his eloquence was at once fiery and persuasive.
+"Flames sparkle from his eyes," says one, "and flowers are scattered
+from his lips."
+
+In 1839 the Russians made one of their most determined efforts to crush
+the resistance of the mountaineers. Schamyl's head-quarters were then at
+Akhulgo, a stronghold perched upon the top of an isolated conical peak
+around whose foot a river wound. Strong by nature, it was well
+fortified, trenches, earthworks, and covered ways now taking the place
+of those stone walls which the Russian cannon had so easily overturned
+at Himri.
+
+Other fortified works were built on the road to Akhulgo, which was
+retained as a last resort, behind whose defences the mountaineers were
+resolved to conquer or die. Its garrison was composed of the flower of
+the Circassian warriors, while some fifteen thousand men beside stood
+ready to take part in the fight.
+
+In the month of May the Russians advanced, with such energy and in such
+force that the anterior works were soon taken, and the mountaineers
+found themselves obliged to take refuge in their final fortress of
+defence. The fight here was fierce and persistent. Step by step the
+Russians made their way, pushing their parallels against the intrenched
+works of their foes. Point after point was gained, and at length, in
+late August, the crisis came. A sudden charge carried them into the
+fort, and the defenders died where they stood, leaving only women and
+children to fall as prisoners into the Russians' hands.
+
+But Schamyl had disappeared. Seek as they would, the chief was not to be
+found. The fortress, the approaches, every nook and corner, were
+explored, but the famous warrior, for whom his foes would have given
+half their wealth, had utterly vanished, no one knew how. To make sure
+of his death they had scarcely left a fighting man alive, yet to their
+chagrin the redoubtable Schamyl was soon again in the field.
+
+How the brave mountaineer escaped is not known. Of the stories afloat,
+one is that he lay concealed until night in a rock refuge, and then
+managed to swim the river while some of his friends attracted the
+attention and drew the fire of the guards. All that can be said is that
+in September he reappeared, ready for new feats of arms, and was seen
+again at the head of a gallant body of mountain warriors.
+
+His head-quarters were now fixed at Dargo, a village in the heart of the
+mountains and in the midst of the primeval forest. But the chief had
+learned a lesson from his late experience. The Circassians were no match
+for the Russians behind fortifications. He resolved in the future to
+fight in a manner better suited to the habits of his followers, and to
+wear out the foe by a guerilla warfare.
+
+Three years passed before the Russians again sought to penetrate the
+mountains in force. Then General Grabbe, the victor at Akhulgo,
+attempted to repeat his success at Dargo. But the experience he gained
+proved to be of a less agreeable type. At the close of the first day's
+march, when the soldiers had eaten their evening meal and stretched
+their limbs to rest after a hard day's march, they were suddenly brought
+to their feet by a rattling volley of musketry from the surrounding
+woods. All night long the firing continued, no great damage being done
+in the darkness, but the soldiers being effectually deprived of their
+rest. When day dawned there was not a Circassian to be seen.
+
+Near noon, as the column wound through a ravine in the forest, the
+firing sharply recommenced, a murderous volley pouring upon the vanguard
+from behind the trees. The number of wounded became so great that there
+were not wagons enough for their transportation. Still General Grab be
+kept on, despite the advice of his officers, only to be attacked again
+at night as his weary men lay in a small open meadow among the hills.
+All night long the whiz of bullets drove away repose, and at every step
+of the next day's march the woods belched forth the leaden messengers of
+death.
+
+The goal of the march was near at hand. The little village of Dargo
+could be seen on a distant hill-top. But it was to be reached only by a
+path of death, and the Russian commander was at length forced to give
+the order to retreat. On seeing the column wheel and begin its backward
+march the Circassians grew wild with excitement and triumph. Slinging
+their rifles behind their backs, they rushed, sabre in hand, upon the
+enemy's centre, breaking through it again and again, while a deadly hail
+of rifle-shots still came from the woods. In the end, of the column of
+six thousand, two thousand were left dead, the remainder reaching the
+fortress from which they had set out in sorry plight.
+
+For several years Schamyl made Dargo his head-quarters. Not until 1845
+did the Russians succeed in taking it, their army now being ten thousand
+strong. But it was a village in flames they captured. Schamyl had fired
+it before leaving, and the Russians were so beset in coming and going
+that their empty conquest was made at the cost of three thousand of
+their men.
+
+In the spring of the following year the valiant chief repaid the enemy
+in part for these invasions of his country. He had now under his command
+no less than twenty thousand warriors, largely horsemen, and in the
+leafy month of May, taking advantage of a weakening of the Russian line,
+he dashed suddenly from the highlands for a raid in the neighboring
+country of the Kabardians.
+
+Two rivers flowed between the mountain ranges and the Kabardas, and two
+lines of hostile fortresses guarded the frontier, containing in all no
+less than seventy thousand men. Between the forts lay Cossack
+settlements, and beyond them the Kabardians, an armed and warlike race.
+Schamyl had no artillery, no fortresses, no depots of provisions and
+ammunition. All he could do was to make a quick dash and a hasty return.
+
+Down upon the Cossacks he rode, followed by his thousands of daring
+riders. Plundering their villages, he halted to take no forts except
+those that went down in the whirl of his coming. Before the garrisons in
+the strongholds fairly knew that he was among them he was gone; and
+while the Kabardians believed that he was lurking in the mountain
+depths, he suddenly dashed into their midst. Sixty populous Kabardian
+villages were plundered, and the mountaineers proudly refused to turn
+till they had watered their horses in the Kuban and even reached the
+more distant banks of the Laba.
+
+But how were they to return? Thousands of horsemen had gathered in the
+way. Long battalions of infantry had hurried to cut off the raiders on
+their retreat. Schamyl knew that he could not get back by the way he
+had come; but, turning southward, he galloped at headlong speed through
+the Cossack settlements in that quarter, and, with his cruppers laden
+with booty and his saddle-bows well furnished with food, evaded his foes
+and reached the mountains again. May seemed to bloom more richly than
+ever as the wild riders dashed proudly back to the doors of their homes
+and heard the glad shouts of joy that greeted their safe return.
+
+The whole story of the exploits of the famous Circassian chief is too
+extended and too full of stirring incidents to be here given even in
+epitome. It must suffice to say, in conclusion, that ten years after his
+escape from Akhulgo that stronghold was again attacked and taken by the
+Russians, and as before Schamyl mysteriously escaped. Completely
+baffled, nothing was left for the Russians but to wear out the chief and
+his people by continued invasions of their mountain land. Again and
+again their armies were beaten by their indomitable foe, but the
+continuance of the struggle slowly exhausted the land and its powers of
+resistance.
+
+The Circassians were helped during the Crimean War by the foes of
+Russia, who supplied them with arms and money, but after that war the
+Russians kept up the struggle with more energy than ever, and, by
+opening a road over the mountains, cut off a part of the country and
+compelled its submission. At length, in April, 1859, twenty-five years
+after the struggle began, Weden, Schamyl's stronghold at that time, was
+taken, after a seven weeks' siege. As before, the chief escaped, but the
+country was virtually subdued, and he had only a small band of
+followers left.
+
+For months afterwards his foes pursued him actively from fastness to
+fastness, determined to run him down, and at length, on September 6,
+1859, surprised him on the plateau of Gounib. Here the devoted band made
+a desperate resistance, not yielding until of the original four hundred
+only forty-seven remained alive. Schamyl, the lion of the Caucasus, was
+at length taken, after having cost the Russians uncounted losses in life
+and money.
+
+With his capture the independence of Circassia came to an end. It has
+since formed an integral part of the Russian empire, and its subjugation
+has opened the gateway to that vast expansion of Russia in Central Asia
+which since then has taken place. The captive chief had won the respect
+of his foes, and was honorably treated, being assigned a residence at
+Kaluga, in Central Russia, with an annual pension of five thousand
+dollars. He, like his countrymen, was a Mohammedan in faith, and removed
+to Mecca, in Arabia, in 1870, dying at Medina in the following year.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE._
+
+
+The Crimean War, brief as was the interval it occupied in the annals of
+time, was one replete with exciting events. And of these much the most
+brilliant was that which took place on the 25th of October, 1854, the
+famous "Charge of the Light Brigade," which Tennyson has immortalized in
+song, and which stands among the most dramatic incidents in the history
+of war. It was truthfully said by one of the French generals who
+witnessed it, "It is magnificent, but it is not war." We give it for its
+magnificence alone.
+
+[Illustration: MOUNT ST. PETER, CRIMEA.]
+
+First let us depict the scene of that memorable event. The British and
+French armies lay in front of Balaklava, their base of supplies, facing
+towards Sebastopol. They occupied a mountain slope, which was strongly
+intrenched. A valley lay before them, and some two miles distant rose
+another mountain range, rocky and picturesque. In the valley between
+were four rounded hillocks, each crowned by an earthwork defended by a
+few hundred Turks. These outlying redoubts formed the central points of
+the famous battle of October 25.
+
+In the early morning of that day the Russians appeared in force,
+debouching from the mountain passes in front of the allied army. Six
+compact masses of infantry were seen, with a line of artillery in
+front, and on each flank a powerful cavalry force, while a cloud of
+mounted skirmishers filled the space between. Fronting the line of the
+allies were the Zouaves, crouching behind low earthworks, on the right
+the 93d Highlanders, and in front the British cavalry, composed of the
+Heavy Brigade, under General Scarlett, and, more in advance, the Light
+Brigade, under Lord Cardigan. Such were, in broad outline, the formation
+of the ground and the position of the actors in the drama of battle
+about to be played.
+
+The scene opened with an attack on the advanced redoubts. No. 1 was
+quickly taken, the Turks flying in haste before the fire of the Russian
+guns. No. 2 was evacuated in similar panic haste, the Cossack
+skirmishers riding among the fleeing Turks and cutting them mercilessly
+down. The guns of No. 2 were at once turned upon No. 3, whose garrison
+of Turks fired a few shots in return, and then, as in the previous
+cases, broke into open flight. After them dashed the Cossack light
+horsemen, flanking them to right and left, and many of the turbaned
+fugitives paid for their panic with their lives. The Russians had won in
+the first move of the game. They had taken three of the redoubts before
+a movement could be made for their support.
+
+Next a squadron of the Russian cavalry charged vigorously upon the
+Highlanders. But a deadly rifle fire met them as they came, volley after
+volley tearing gaps through their compact ranks, and in a moment more
+they had wheeled, opened their files, and were in full flight. "Bravo,
+Highlanders!" came up an exulting shout from the thousands of spectators
+behind.
+
+It was evident that Balaklava was the goal of the Russian movement, and
+the heavy cavalry were ordered into position to protect the approaches.
+As they moved towards the post indicated, a large body of the enemy's
+cavalry appeared over the ridge in front. These were _corps d'elite_,
+evidently, their jackets of light blue, embroidered with silver lace,
+giving them a holiday appearance. Behind them, as they galloped at an
+easy pace to the brow of the hill, appeared the keen glitter of
+lance-tips, and in the rear of the lancers came several squadrons of
+gray-coated dragoons as supports. As the serried ranks of horsemen
+advanced, their pace declined from a gallop to an easy trot, and from
+that almost to a halt. Their first line was double the length of the
+British, and three times as deep. Behind it came a second line, equally
+strong. They greatly outnumbered their foe.
+
+It was evident that the shock of a cavalry battle was at hand. The
+hearts of the spectators throbbed with excitement as they saw the Heavy
+Brigade suddenly break into a full gallop and rush headlong upon the
+enemy, making straight for the centre of the Russian line. On they went,
+Grays and Enniskilleners, in serried array, while their cheers and
+shouts rent the air as they struck the Russian line with an impetus
+which carried them through the close-drawn ranks. For a moment there was
+a glittering flash of sword-blades and a sharp clash of steel, and
+then, in thinned numbers, the charging dragoons appeared in the rear of
+the line, heading with unchecked speed towards the second Russian rank.
+
+The gallant horsemen seemed buried amid the multitude of the enemy. "God
+help them! they are lost!" came from more than one trembling lip and was
+echoed in many a fearful heart. The onset was terrific: the second line
+was broken like the first, and in its rear the red-coated riders
+appeared. But the first line of Russians, which had been rolled back
+upon its flanks by the impetuous rush, was closing up again, and the
+much smaller force in their midst was in serious peril of being
+swallowed up and crushed by sheer force of numbers.
+
+The crisis was a terrible one. But at the moment when the danger seemed
+greatest, two regiments of dragoons, the 4th and 5th, who had closely
+followed their fellows in the charge, broke furiously upon the enemy,
+dashing through and rending to fragments the already broken line. In a
+moment all was over. Less than five minutes had passed since the first
+shock, and already the Russian horse was in full flight, beaten by half
+its force. Wild cheers burst from the whole army as the victors drew
+back with almost intact ranks, their loss having been very small.
+
+Thus ended the famous "Charge of the Heavy Brigade." Its glory was to be
+eclipsed by that memorable "Charge of the Light Brigade" which became
+the theme of Tennyson's stirring ode, and the recital of which still
+causes many a heart to throb. We are indebted for our story of it to
+the thrilling account of W.H. Russell, the _Times_ correspondent, and a
+spectator of the event.
+
+As the Russian cavalry retired, their infantry fell back, leaving men in
+three of the captured redoubts, but abandoning the other points gained.
+They also had guns on the heights overlooking their position. About the
+hour of eleven, while the two armies thus faced each other, resting for
+an interval from the rush of conflict, there came to Lord Cardigan that
+fatal order which caused him to hurl his men into "the jaws of death."
+How it came to be given, how the misapprehension occurred, who was at
+fault in the error, has never been made clear. Captain Nolan, who
+brought the order, was one of the first to fall, and his story of the
+event died with him. All we know is that he handed Lord Lucan a written
+command to advance, and when asked, "Where are we to advance to?" he
+pointed to the Russian line, and said, "There are the enemy, and there
+are the guns," or words of similar meaning.
+
+It is a maxim in war that "cavalry shall never act without a support,"
+that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry carry guns," and
+that a line of cavalry should have some squadrons in column on its
+flanks, to guard it against a flank attack. None of these rules was
+carried out here, and Lord Lucan reluctantly gave the order to advance
+upon the guns, which Lord Cardigan as reluctantly accepted, for to any
+eye it was evident that it was an order to advance upon death. "Some one
+had blundered," and wisdom would have dictated the demand for a
+confirmation of the order. Valor suggested that it should be obeyed in
+all its blank enormity. Dismissing wisdom and yielding to valor, Lord
+Cardigan gave the word to advance, the brigade, scarcely a regiment in
+total strength, broke into a sudden gallop, and within a minute the
+devoted line was flying over the plain towards the enemy.
+
+The movement struck Lord Raglan, from whom the order was supposed to
+have emanated, with consternation. It struck the Russians with surprise.
+Surely that handful of men was not going to attack an army in position?
+Yet so it seemed as the Light Brigade dashed onward, the uplifted sabres
+glittering in the morning sun, the horses galloping at full speed
+towards the Russian guns, over a plain a mile and a half in width.
+
+Not far had they gone when a hot fire of cannon, musketry, and rifles
+belched from the Russian line. A flood of smoke and flame hid the
+opposing ranks, and shot and shell tore through the charging troops.
+Gaps were rent in their ranks, men and horses went down in rapid
+succession, and riderless horses were seen rushing wildly across the
+plain. The first line was broken. It was joined by the second. On went
+the brigade in a single line with unchecked speed. Though torn by the
+deadly fire of thirty guns, the brave riders rode steadily on into the
+smoke of the batteries, with cheers which too often changed in a breath
+to the cry of death.
+
+Through the clouds of smoke the horsemen could be seen dashing up to and
+between the guns, cutting down the gunners as they stood. Then,
+wheeling, they broke through a line of Russian infantry which sought to
+stay their advance, and scattered it to right and left. In a moment
+more, to the relief of those who had watched their career in an agony of
+emotion, they were seen riding back from the captured redoubt.
+
+Scattered and broken they came, some mounted, some on foot, all
+hastening towards the British lines. As they wheeled to retreat, a
+regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the
+8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rushed at the foe, cutting a passage
+through with great loss. The others had similarly to break their way
+through the columns that sought to envelop them. As they emerged from
+the cavalry fight, the gunners opened upon them again, cutting new lines
+of carnage through their decimated ranks. The Heavy Brigade had ridden
+to their relief, but could only cover the retreat of the slender remnant
+of the gallant band. In twenty-five minutes from the start not a British
+soldier, except the dead and dying, was left on the scene of this daring
+but mad exploit.
+
+Captain Nolan fell among the first; Lord Lucan was slightly wounded;
+Lord Cardigan had his clothes pierced by a lance; Lord Fitzgibbon
+received a fatal wound. Of the total brigade, some six hundred strong,
+the killed, wounded, and missing numbered four hundred and twenty-six.
+
+While this event was taking place, a body of French cavalry made a
+brilliant charge on a battery at the left, which was firing upon the
+devoted brigade, and cut down the gunners. But they could not get the
+guns off without support, and fell back with a loss of one-fourth their
+number. Thus ended that eventful day, in which the British cavalry had
+covered itself with glory, though it had only glory to show in return
+for its heavy loss.
+
+Such is the story as it stands in prose. Here is Tennyson's poetic
+version, which is full of the dash and daring of the wild ride.
+
+
+
+THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
+
+  Half a league, half a league,
+    Half a league onward,
+  All in the valley of Death
+    Rode the six hundred.
+    "Forward, the Light Brigade!
+  Charge for the guns!" he said:
+  Into the valley of Death
+        Rode the six hundred.
+
+  "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
+  Was there a man dismayed?
+  Not though the soldier knew
+    Some one had blundered:
+  Theirs not to make reply,
+  Theirs not to reason why,
+  Theirs but to do and die,
+  Into the valley of Death
+        Rode the six hundred.
+
+  Cannon to right of them,
+  Cannon to left of them,
+  Cannon in front of them,
+    Volleyed and thundered;
+  Stormed at with shot and shell,
+  Boldly they rode and well;
+  Into the jaws of Death,
+  Into the mouth of Hell,
+        Rode the six hundred.
+
+  Flashed all their sabres bare,
+  Flashed as they turned in air,
+  Sabring the gunners there,
+  Charging an army, while
+    All the world wondered:
+  Plunged in the battery-smoke
+  Right through the line they broke;
+  Cossack and Russian
+  Reeled from the sabre-stroke
+    Shattered and sundered.
+  Then they rode back, but not--
+        Not the six hundred.
+
+  Cannon to right of them,
+  Cannon to left of them,
+  Cannon behind them,
+    Volleyed and thundered;
+  Stormed at with shot and shell,
+  While horse and hero fell,
+  They that had fought so well
+  Came through the jaws of Death,
+  Back from the mouth of Hell,
+  All that was left of them,
+        Left of six hundred.
+
+  When can their glory fade?
+  Oh, the wild charge they made!
+    All the world wondered.
+  Honor the charge they made!
+  Honor the Light Brigade,
+        Noble six hundred!
+
+
+
+
+_THE FALL OF SEBASTOPOL._
+
+
+The history of Russia has been largely a history of wars,--which indeed
+might be said with equal justice of most of the nations of Europe. In
+truth, history as written gives such prominence to warlike deeds, and
+glosses over so hastily the events of peace, that we seem to hear the
+roll of the drum rising from the written page itself, and to see the hue
+of blood crimsoning the printed sheets. This dominance of war in history
+is a striking instance of false perspective. Nations have not spent all
+or most of their lives in fighting, but the clash of the sword rings so
+loudly through the historic atmosphere that we scarcely hear the milder
+sounds of peace.
+
+So far as Russia is concerned, the torrent of war has rolled mainly
+towards the south. From those early days in which the Scythians drove
+back the Persian host and the early Varangians fiercely assailed the
+Greek empire, the relations of the north and the south have been
+strained, and a rapid succession of wars has been waged between the
+Russians and their varying foes, the Greeks, the Tartars, and the Turks.
+For ten centuries these wars have continued, with Constantinople for
+their ultimate goal, yet in all these ten centuries of conflict no
+Russian foot has ever been set in hostility within that ancient city's
+walls.
+
+Of these many wars, that which looms largest on the historic page is
+the fierce conflict of 1854-55, in which England and France came to
+Turkey's aid and Russia met with defeat on the soil of the Crimea. We
+have already given the most striking and dramatic incident of this
+famous Crimean war. It may be aptly followed by the final scene of all,
+the assault upon and capture of Sebastopol.
+
+The city of this name (Russian _Sevastopol_) is a seaport and fortress
+on the site of an old Tartar village near the southwest extremity of the
+Crimea, built by Russia as her naval station on the Black Sea. It
+possesses one of the finest natural harbors of the world, and formed the
+central scene of the Crimean War, the English and French armies
+besieging it with all the resources at their command. For nearly a year
+this stronghold of Russia was subjected to bombardment. Battles were
+fought in front of it, vigorous efforts for its capture and its relief
+were made, but in early September, 1855, it still remained in Russian
+hands, though frightfully torn and rent by the torrent of iron balls
+which had been poured into it with little cessation. But now the climax
+of the struggle was at hand, and all Europe stood in breathless anxiety
+awaiting the result.
+
+On September 5 the fiercest cannonade the city had yet felt was begun by
+the French, the English batteries quickly joining in. All that night and
+during the night of the 6th the bombardment was unceasingly continued,
+and during the 7th the cannons still belched their fiery hail upon the
+town. Everywhere the streets showed the terrible effect of this
+vigorous assault. Nearly every house in sight was rent asunder by the
+balls. Towards evening the great dock-yard shears caught fire, and
+burned fiercely in the high wind then prevailing. A large vessel in the
+harbor was next seen in flames, and burned to the water's edge. This
+bombardment was preliminary to a general assault, fixed for the 8th, and
+on the morning of that day it was resumed, as a mask to the coming
+charge upon the works.
+
+The Malakoff fort, the key to the Russian position, was to be assaulted
+by the French, who gathered in great force in its front during the
+night. The Redan, another strong fortification, was reserved for the
+British attack. In the trenches, facing the works, men were gathered as
+closely as they could be packed, with their nerves strung to an intense
+pitch as they awaited the decisive word. The hour of noon was fixed for
+the French assault, and as it approached a lull in the cannonade told
+that the critical moment was at hand.
+
+At five minutes to twelve the word was given, and like a swarm of angry
+bees the French sprang from their trenches and rushed in mad haste
+across the narrow space dividing them from the Malakoff. The place, a
+moment before quiet and apparently deserted, seemed suddenly alive. A
+few bounds took the active line of stormers across the perilous
+interval, and within a minute's time they were scrambling up the face
+and slipping through the embrasures of the long-defiant fort. On they
+came, stream after stream, battalion succeeding battalion, each dashing
+for the embrasures, and before the last of the stormers had left the
+trenches the flag of the foremost was waving in triumph above a bastion
+of the fort.
+
+The Russians had been taken by surprise. Very few of them were in the
+fort. The destructive cannonade had driven them to shelter. It was in
+the hands of the French by the time their foes were fully aware of what
+had occurred. Then a determined attempt was made to recapture it, and
+the Russian general hurled his men in successive storming columns upon
+the work, vainly endeavoring to drive out its captors. From noon until
+seven in the evening these furious efforts continued, thousands of the
+Russians falling in the attempt. In the end the exhausted legions were
+withdrawn, the French being left in possession of the work they had so
+ably won and so valiantly held.
+
+Meanwhile the British were engaged in their share of the assault. The
+moment the French tricolor was seen waving from the parapet of the
+Malakoff four signal rockets were sent up, and the dash on the Redan
+began. It was made in less force than the French had used, and with a
+very different result. The Russians were better prepared, and the space
+to be crossed was wider, the assaulting column being rent with musketry
+as it dashed over the interval between the trenches and the fort. On
+dashed the assailants, through the abatis, which had been torn to
+fragments by the artillery fire, into the ditch, and up the face of the
+work. The parapet was scaled almost without opposition, the few Russians
+there taking shelter behind their breastworks in the rear, whence they
+opened fire on the assailing force.
+
+At this point, instead of continuing the charge, as their officers
+implored them to do, the men halted and began loading and firing, a work
+in which they were greatly at a disadvantage, since the Russians
+returned the fire briskly from behind their shelters. Every moment
+reinforcements rushed in from the town and added to the weight of the
+enemy's fire. The assailants were falling rapidly, particularly the
+officers, who were singled out by their foes.
+
+For an hour and a half the struggle continued. By that time the Russians
+had cleared the Redan, but the British still held the parapets. Then a
+rush from within was made, and the assailants were swept back and driven
+through the embrasures or down the face of the parapet into the ditch,
+where their foes followed them with the bayonet.
+
+A short, sharp, and bloody struggle here took place. Step by step the
+band of Britons was forced back by the enemy, those who fled for the
+trenches having to run the gauntlet of a hot fire, those who remained
+having to defend themselves against four times their force. The attempt
+had hopelessly failed, and of those in the assailing column
+comparatively few escaped. The day's work had been partly a success and
+partly a failure. The French had succeeded in their assault. The English
+had failed in theirs, and lost heavily in the attempt.
+
+What the final result was to be no one could tell. Silence followed the
+day's struggle, and night fell upon a comparatively quiet scene. About
+eleven o'clock a new act in the drama began, with a terrific explosion
+that shook the ground like an earthquake. By midnight several other
+explosions vibrated through the air. Here and there flames were seen,
+half hidden by the cloud of dust which rose before the strong wind. As
+the night waned, the fires grew and spread, while tremendous explosions
+from time to time told of startling events taking place in the town.
+What was going on under the shroud of night? The early dawn solved the
+mystery. The Russians were abandoning the city they had so long and so
+gallantly held.
+
+The Malakoff was the key of their position. Its loss had made the city
+untenable. The failure of the attempt to recover it was followed by
+immediate preparations for evacuation. The gray light of the coming day
+showed a stream of soldiers marching across the bridge to the north
+side. The fleet had disappeared. It lay sunk in the harbor's depths.
+
+The retreat had begun at eight o'clock of the evening before, soon after
+the failure to retake the Malakoff. But it was a Moscow the Russian
+general proposed to leave his foes. Combustibles had been stored in the
+principal houses. About two o'clock flames began to rise from these, and
+at the same hour all the vessels of the fleet except the steamers were
+scuttled and sunk. The steamers were retained to aid in carrying off the
+stores. A terrific explosion behind the Redan at four o'clock shook the
+whole camp. Four others equally startling followed. Battery after
+battery was hurled into the air by the explosion of the magazines.
+Before seven o'clock the last of the Russians had crossed the bridge to
+the north side, which was uninvested by the allies, and the hill-sides
+opposite the city were alive with troops. Smaller explosions followed.
+From a steamer in the harbor clouds of dense smoke arose. Flames spread
+rapidly, and by ten o'clock the whole city was in a blaze, while vast
+columns of smoke rose far into the skies, lurid in the glare of the
+flames below. The sounds of battle had ceased. Those of conflagration
+and ruin succeeded. The final flames were those sent up from the
+steamers, which were set on fire when the work of transporting stores
+had ceased.
+
+Great was the surprise throughout the camp that Sunday morning when the
+news spread that Sebastopol was on fire and the enemy in full retreat.
+Most of the soldiers, worn out with their desperate day's work, slept
+through the explosions and woke to learn that the city so long fought
+for was at last theirs--or so much of it as the flames were likely to
+leave.
+
+About midnight, attracted by the dead silence, some volunteers had crept
+into an embrasure of the Redan and found the place deserted by the foe.
+As soon as dawn appeared, the French Zouaves began to steal from their
+trenches into the burning town, heedless of the flames, the explosions,
+and the danger of being shot by some lurking foe, the desire for plunder
+being stronger in their minds than dread of danger. Soon the red
+uniforms of these daring marauders could be seen in the streets,
+revealed by the flames, and the day had but fairly dawned when men came
+staggering back laden with spoils, Russian relics being offered for sale
+in the camps while the Russian columns were still marching from the
+deserted city. The sailors were equally alert, and could soon be seen
+bearing more or less worthless lumber from the streets, often useless
+stuff which they had risked their lives to gain.
+
+The allies had won a city in ruins; but they had defeated the Russians
+at every encounter, in field and in fort, and the Muscovite resources
+were exhausted. The war must soon cease. What followed was to complete
+the destruction which the torch had began. The splendid docks which
+Russia had constructed at immense cost were mined and blown up. The
+houses which had escaped the fire were robbed of doors, windows, and
+furniture to add to the comfort of the huts which were built for winter
+quarters by the troops. As for the scene of ruin, disaster, and death
+within the city, it was frightful, and it was evident that the Russians
+had clung to it with a death-grip until it was impossible to remain. It
+was an absolute ruin from which the Sebastopol of to-day began its
+growth.
+
+
+
+
+_AT THE GATES OF CONSTANTINOPLE._
+
+
+From the days of Rurik down, a single desire--a single passion, we may
+say--has had a strong hold upon the Russian heart, the desire to possess
+Constantinople, that grand gate-city between Europe and Asia, with its
+control of the avenue to the southern seas. While it continued the
+capital of the Greek empire it was more than once assailed by Russian
+armies. After it became the metropolis of the Turkish dominion renewed
+attempts were made. But Greek and Turk alike valiantly held their own,
+and the city of the straits defied its northern foes. Through the
+centuries war after war with Turkey was fought, the possession of
+Constantinople their main purpose, but the Moslem clung to his capital
+with fierce pertinacity, and not until the year 1878 did he give way and
+a Russian army set eyes on the city so long desired.
+
+In 1875 an insurrection broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two
+Christian provinces under Turkish rule. The rebellious sentiment spread
+to Bulgaria, and in 1876 Turkey began a policy of repression so cruel as
+to make all Europe quiver with horror. Thousands of its most savage
+soldiery were let loose upon the Christian populations south of the
+Balkans, with full license to murder and burn, and a frightful carnival
+of torture and massacre began. More than a hundred towns were destroyed,
+and their inhabitants treated with revolting inhumanity. In the month of
+June, 1876, about forty thousand Bulgarians, of all ages and sexes, were
+put to death, many of the children being sold as slaves in the Turkish
+cities.
+
+Of all the powers of Europe, Russia was the only one that took arms to
+avenge these slaughtered populations. England stood impassive, the other
+nations held aloof, but Alexander II. called out his troops, and once
+more the Russian battalions were set _en route_ for the Danube, with
+Constantinople as their ultimate goal.
+
+In June, 1877, the Danube was crossed and the Russian host entered
+Bulgaria, the Turks retiring as they advanced. But the march of invasion
+was soon arrested. The Balkan Mountains, nature's line of defence for
+Turkey, lay before the Russian troops, and on the high-road to its
+passes stood the town of Plevna, a fortress which must be taken before
+the mountains could safely be crossed. The works were very strong, and
+behind them lay Osman Pacha, one of the boldest and bravest of the
+Turkish soldiers, with a gallant little army under his command. The
+defence of this city was the central event of the war. From July to
+September the Russians sought its capture, making three desperate
+assaults, all of which were repulsed. In October the city was invested
+with an army of forty thousand men, under the intrepid General
+Skobeleff, with a determination to win. But Osman held out with all his
+old stubbornness, and continued his unflinching defence until
+starvation forced him to yield. He had lost his city, but had held back
+the Russian army for nearly half a year and won the admiration of the
+world.
+
+The fall of Plevna set free the large Russian army that had been tied up
+by its siege. What should be done with these troops, more than one
+hundred thousand strong? The Balkans, whose gateways Plevna had closed,
+now lay open before them, but winter was at hand, winter with its frosts
+and snows. An attempt to cross the mountains at this time, even if
+successful, would bring them before strong Turkish fortresses in
+midwinter, with a chain of mountains in the rear, over which it would be
+impossible to maintain a line of supplies. The prudent course would have
+been to put the men into winter quarters at the foot of the Balkans on
+the north and wait for spring before venturing upon the mountain passes.
+
+The Grand Duke Nicholas, however, was not governed by such
+considerations of prudence, but determined, at all hazards, to strike
+the Turks before they had time to reorganize and recuperate. The army
+was, therefore, at once set in motion, General Gourko marching upon the
+Araba-Konak, Radetzky upon the Shipka Pass. The story of these movements
+is a long one, but must be given here in a few words. The bitter cold,
+the deep snow, the natural difficulties of the passes, the efforts of
+the enemy, all failed to check the Russian advance. Gourko forced his
+way through all opposition, took the powerful fortress of Sophia without
+a blow, and routed an army of fifty thousand men on his march to
+Philippopolis. Radetzky did even better, since he captured the Turkish
+army defending the Shipka Pass, thirty-six thousand strong. The whole
+Turkish defence of the Balkans had gone down with a crash, and the
+Russians found themselves on the south side of the mountains with the
+enemy everywhere on the retreat, a broken and demoralized host.
+
+Meanwhile what had become of the Turkish population of the Balkans and
+Roumelia? There were none of them to be seen; no fugitives were passed;
+not a Turk was visible in Sophia; the whole region traversed up to
+Philippopolis seemed to have only a Christian population. But on leaving
+the last-named city the situation changed, and a terrible scene of
+bloodshed, death, and misery met the eyes of the marching hosts. It was
+now easy to see what had become of the Turks: they were here in
+multitudes in full flight for their lives. The Bulgarians had avenged
+themselves bitterly on their late oppressors. Dead bodies of men and
+animals, broken carts, heaps of abandoned household goods, and tatters
+of clothing seemed to mark every step of the way. Fierce and terrible
+had been the struggle, dreadful the result, Turks and Bulgarians lying
+thickly side by side in death. Here appeared the bodies of Bulgarian
+peasants horrible with gaping wounds and mutilations, the marks of
+Turkish vengeance; there beside them lay corpses of dignified old Turks,
+their white beards stained with their blood.
+
+While the men had died from violence, the women and children had
+perished from cold and hunger, many of them being frozen to death, the
+faces and tiny hands of dead children visible through the shrouding
+snows. The living were dragging their slow way onward through this
+ghastly array of the dead, in a seemingly endless procession of wagons,
+drawn by half starved oxen, and bearing sick and feeble human beings and
+loads of household goods. Beside the laden vehicles the wretched,
+famine-stricken, worn-out fugitives walked, pushing forward in unceasing
+fear of their merciless Bulgarian foes.
+
+Farther on the scene grew even more terrible. The road was strewn with
+discarded bedding, carpets, and other household goods. In one village
+were visible the bodies of some Turkish soldiers whom the Bulgarians had
+stoned to death, the corpses half covered with the heaps of stones and
+bricks which had been hurled at them.
+
+Beyond this was reached a vast mass of closely packed wagons extending
+widely over roads and fields, not fewer than twenty thousand in all. The
+oxen were still in the yokes, but the people had vanished, and Bulgarian
+plunderers were helping themselves unresisted to the spoil. The great
+company, numbering fully two hundred thousand, had fled in terror to the
+mountains from some Russian cavalry who had been fired upon by the
+escort of the fugitives and were about to fire in return. Abandoning
+their property, the able-bodied had fled in panic fear, leaving the old,
+the sick, and the infants to perish in the snow, and their cherished
+effects to the hands of Bulgarian pilferers.
+
+In advance lay Adrianople, the ancient capital of Turkey and the second
+city in the empire. Here, if anywhere, the Turks should have made a
+stand. But news came that this stronghold had been abandoned by its
+garrison, that the wildest panic prevailed, and that the Turkish
+population of the city and the surrounding villages was in full flight.
+At daylight of the 20th of January the city was entered by the cavalry,
+and on the 22d Skobeleff marched in with his infantry, at once
+despatching the cavalry in pursuit of the retreating enemy. The defence
+of Adrianople had been well provided for by an extensive system of
+earthworks, but not an effort was made to hold it, and an incredible
+panic seemed everywhere to have seized the Turks.
+
+Russia had almost accomplished the task for which it had been striving
+during ten centuries. Constantinople at last lay at its mercy. The Turks
+still had an army, still had strong positions for defence, but every
+shred of courage seemed to have fled from their hearts, and their powers
+of resistance to be at an end. They were in a state of utter
+demoralization and ready to give way to Russia at all points and accept
+almost any terms they could obtain. Had they decided to continue the
+fight, they still possessed a position famous for its adaptation to
+defence, behind which it was possible to hold at bay all the power of
+Russia.
+
+This was the celebrated position of Buyak-Tchek-medje, a defensive line
+twenty-five miles from Constantinople and of remarkable military
+strength. The peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora is
+at this point only twenty miles wide, and twelve of these miles are
+occupied by broad lakes which extend inland from either shore. Of the
+remaining distance, about half is made up of swamps which are almost or
+quite impassable, while dense and difficult thickets occupy the rest of
+the line. Behind this stretch of lake, swamp, and thicket there extends
+from sea to sea a ridge from four hundred to seven hundred feet in
+height, the whole forming a most admirable position for defence. This
+ridge had been fortified by the Turks with redoubts, trenches, and
+rifle-pits, which, fully garrisoned and mounted with guns, might have
+proved impregnable to the strongest force. The thirty thousand men
+within them could have given great trouble to the whole Russian army,
+and double that number might have completely arrested its march. Yet
+this great natural stronghold was given up without a blow, signed away
+with a stroke of the pen.
+
+[Illustration: THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE.]
+
+On January 31 an armistice was signed, one of whose terms was that this
+formidable defensive line should be evacuated by the Turks, who were to
+retire to an inner line, while the Russians were to occupy a position
+about ten miles distant. It was no consideration for Turkey that now
+kept the Russians outside the great capital, but dread of the powers of
+Europe, which jealously distrusted an increase of the power of Russia,
+and were bent on saving Turkey from the hands of the czar.
+
+On February 12 an event took place that threatened ominous results. The
+British fleet forced the passage of the Dardanelles and moved upon
+Constantinople, on the pretence of protecting the lives of British
+subjects in that city. As soon as news of this movement reached St.
+Petersburg the emperor telegraphed to the Grand Duke Nicholas, giving
+him authority to march a part of his army into Constantinople, on the
+same plea that the British had made. In response the grand duke demanded
+of the sultan the right to occupy a part of the environs of his capital
+with Russian soldiers, the negotiations ending with the permission to
+occupy the village of San Stefano, on the Sea of Marmora, about six
+miles from the walls of the threatened city.
+
+What would be the end of it all was difficult to foresee. On the waters
+of the city floated the English iron-clads, with their mute threat of
+war; around the walls Turkish troops were rapidly throwing up
+earthworks; leading officers in the Russian army chafed at the thought
+of stopping so near their longed-for goal, and burned with the desire to
+make a final end of the empire of the Turks and add Constantinople to
+the dominions of the czar. Yet though thus, as it were, on the edge of a
+volcano, their ordinary policy of delay and hesitation was shown by the
+Turkish diplomats, and the treaty of peace was not concluded and signed
+until the 3d of March. The Russians had used their controlling position
+with effect, and the treaty largely put an end to Turkish dominion in
+Europe.
+
+The news of the signing was received with cheers of enthusiasm by the
+Russian army, drawn up on the shores of the inland sea, the
+Preobrajensky, the famous regiment of Peter the Great, holding the post
+of honor. Scarce a rifle-shot distant, crowding in groups the crests of
+the neighboring hills, and deeply interested spectators of the scene,
+appeared numbers of their late opponents. The news received, the
+cheering battalions wheeled into column, and past the grand duke went
+the army in rapid review, the march still continuing after darkness had
+descended on the scene.
+
+And thus ended the war, with the Russians within sight of the walls of
+that city which for so many centuries they had longed and struggled to
+possess. Only for the threatening aspect of the powers of Europe the
+Ottoman empire would have ended then and there, and the Turk, "encamped
+in Europe," would have ended forever his rule over Christian realms.
+
+
+
+
+_THE NIHILISTS AND THEIR WORK._
+
+
+In 1861 Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, signed a proclamation for the
+emancipation of the Russian serfs, giving freedom by a stroke of the pen
+to over fifty millions of human beings. In 1881, twenty years
+afterwards, when, as there is some reason to believe, he was about to
+grant a constitution and summon a parliament for the political
+emancipation of the Russian people, he fell victim to a band of
+revolutionists, and the thought of granting liberty to his people
+perished with him.
+
+This assassination was the work of the secret society known as the
+Nihilists. To say that their association was secret is equivalent to
+saying that we know nothing of their purposes other than their name and
+their deeds indicate. Nihilism signifies _nothingness_. It comes from
+the same root as _annihilate_, and annihilation of despots appears to
+have been the Nihilist theory of obtaining political rights. This
+society reached its culmination in the reign of Alexander II., and,
+despite the fact that he proved himself one of the mildest and most
+public-spirited of the czars, he was chosen as the victim of the theory
+of obtaining political regeneration by terror.
+
+Threats preceded deeds. The final years of the emperor's life were made
+wretched through fear and anxiety. His ministers were killed by the
+revolutionists. Some of the guards placed about his person became
+victims of the secret band. Letters bordered with black and threatening
+the emperor's life were found among his papers or his clothes. An
+explosive powder placed in his handkerchief injured his sight for a
+time; a box of asthma pills sent him proved to contain a small but
+dangerous infernal machine. He grew haggard through this constant peril;
+his hair whitened, his form shrank, his nerves were unstrung.
+
+In February, 1879, Prince Krapotkin, governor-general of Kharkoff, was
+killed by a pistol-shot fired into his carriage window. In April a
+Nihilist fired five pistol-shots at the czar. In June the Nihilists
+resolved to use dynamite with the purpose of destroying the
+governors-general of several provinces and the czar and heir-apparent.
+Among their victims was the chief of police, while two of his successors
+barely escaped death.
+
+The first attempt to kill the czar by dynamite took the form of
+excavating mines under three railroads on one of which he was expected
+to travel. Of these mines only one was exploded. A house on the Moscow
+railroad, not far from that city, was purchased by the conspirators, and
+an underground passage excavated from its cellar to the roadway. Here
+auger-holes were bored upward in which were inserted iron pipes
+communicating with dynamite stored below. On the day when the emperor
+was expected to pass, a woman Nihilist named Sophia Perovskya stood
+within view of the track, with instructions to wave her handkerchief to
+the conspirators in the house at the proper moment. The pilot train
+which always preceded the imperial train was allowed to pass. The other
+train drew up to take water, and was wrecked by the explosion of the
+mine. Fortunately for the emperor, he was in the pilot train and out of
+danger.
+
+Some of the participants in this affair were arrested, but their chief,
+a German named Hartmann, escaped. Despite the utmost efforts of the
+police, he made his way safely out of Russia, aided by Nihilists at
+every step, sometimes travelling on foot, at other times in peasants'
+carts, finally crossing the frontier and reaching the nest of
+conspirators at Geneva. Here he is supposed to have taken part with
+others in devising a new and what proved a fatal plot. Meanwhile a fresh
+attempt was made on the life of the czar.
+
+On February 5, 1880, Alexander II. was to entertain at dinner in the
+Winter Palace a royal visitor, Prince Alexander of Hesse. Fortunately,
+the czar was detained for a short time, and the hour fixed for the
+dinner had passed when the party proceeded along the corridor to the
+dining-hall. The brief delay probably saved their lives, for at that
+moment a tremendous explosion took place, wrecking the dining-hall and
+completely demolishing the guard-room, which was filled with dead and
+dying victims, sixty-seven in all. It proved that a Nihilist had
+obtained employment among some carpenters engaged in repairs within the
+palace, and had succeeded in storing dynamite in a tool-chest in his
+room. He escaped, and was never seen in St. Petersburg again. Two days
+later the corpse of a murdered policeman was found on the frozen surface
+of the Neva, a paper pinned to his breast threatening with death every
+governor-general except Melikoff, the successor of the murdered
+Krapotkin.
+
+Their failures had proved so nearly successes that the Nihilists were
+rather encouraged than depressed. New plans followed the failure of old
+ones. It was proposed to poison the emperor and his son, the murder to
+be followed by a revolt of the disaffected in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
+the seizure of the palaces, and the establishment of a constitutional
+government. This plan, however, was given up as not likely to have the
+"_great moral effect_" which the Nihilists hoped to produce.
+
+A Nihilist student in St. Petersburg had sent to the Paris committee of
+the society a recipe for a formidable explosive of his invention. A
+quantity of this dangerous substance was manufactured in France and
+secretly conveyed to St. Petersburg, where bombs to contain it had been
+prepared. The plans of the conspirators were now very carefully laid.
+They did not propose to fail again, if care could insure success. A
+cheesemonger's shop was opened on a street leading to the palace, under
+which a mine was laid to the centre of the carriage-way, it being
+proposed to kill the czar when out driving. If his carriage should take
+another route and follow the street leading from the Catharine Canal, it
+was arranged to wreck it with bombs flung by hand. The death of the czar
+was the sole thing in view. The conspirators seemed willing freely to
+sacrifice their own lives to that object. As regards the mine, it was so
+heavily charged with dynamite that its explosion would have wrecked a
+great part of the Anitchkoff Palace while killing the czar.
+
+How the explosive material was conveyed from Paris to Russia is a
+mystery which was never successfully traced by the police. The utmost
+care was taken at the frontiers to prevent the entrance of any
+suspicious substance. For a year or two even the tea that came on the
+backs of camels from China was carefully searched, while all travellers
+were closely examined, and all articles coming from Western Europe were
+almost pulled to pieces in the minuteness of the scrutiny. The explosive
+is said to have looked like golden syrup, and to have been sweet to the
+taste, though acrid in its after-effects. A drop or two let fall on a
+hot stove flashed up in a brilliant sheet of flame, though without smell
+or noise.
+
+[Illustration: THE ARREST OF A NIHILIST.]
+
+Among the conspirators, one of the most useful was Sophia Perovskya, the
+woman already named. She was young, of noble family, handsome, educated,
+and fascinating in manner. Her beauty and high connections gave her
+opportunities which none of her fellow-conspirators enjoyed, and by her
+influence over men of rank and position she was enabled to learn many of
+the secrets of the court and to become familiar with all the precautions
+taken by the police to insure the safety of the czar. There was another
+woman in the plot, a Jewish girl named Hesse Helfman. Eight men
+constituted the remainder of the party.
+
+The fatal day came in March, 1881. On the morning of the 12th Melikoff,
+minister of the interior, told the czar that a man connected with the
+railroad explosion had just been arrested, on whose person were found
+papers indicating a new plot. He earnestly entreated Alexander to avoid
+exposing himself. On the next morning the czar went early to mass, and
+subsequently accompanied his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, to inspect
+his body-guard. Sophia Perovskya had been apprised of these intended
+movements, and informed the chief conspirators, who at once determined
+that the deed should be done that day. The lover of Hesse Helfman had
+been arrested and had at once shot himself. Papers of an incriminating
+character had been found in her house, and it was feared that further
+delay might frustrate the plot, so that the purpose of waiting until the
+czar and his son might be slain together was abandoned. It was not known
+which street the czar would take. If he took the one, the mine was to be
+exploded; if the other, the bombs were to be thrown.
+
+Two men, Resikoff and Elnikoff, the latter a young man completely under
+Sophia's influence, were to throw the bombs. She took a position from
+which she might signal the approach of the carriage. As it proved, the
+Catharine Canal route was taken. The carriage approached. Everything
+wore its usual aspect. There was nothing to excite suspicion. Suddenly a
+dark object was hurled from the sidewalk through the air and a
+tremendous report was heard. Resikoff had flung his bomb. A baker's boy
+and the Cossack footman of the czar were instantly killed, but the
+intended victim was unhurt and the horses were only slightly wounded.
+The coachman, who had escaped injury, wished to drive onward at speed
+out of the quickly gathering crowd, but Alexander, who had seen his
+footman fall, insisted on getting out of the carriage to assist him. It
+was a fatal resolve. As his feet touched the ground, Elnikoff flung his
+bomb. It exploded at the feet of the czar with such force as to throw
+men many yards distant to the ground, but proved fatal to only two,
+Elnikoff, who was instantly killed, and Alexander, who was mortally
+wounded, his lower limbs and the lower part of his body being
+frightfully shattered. He survived for a few hours in dreadful pain.
+
+Terrible as was the crime, it was worse than useless. The proposed
+rising did not take place. A new czar immediately succeeded the dead
+one. The hoped-for constitution perished with him upon whom it depended.
+The Nihilists, instead of gaining liberal institutions, had set back the
+clock of reform for a generation, and perhaps much longer. Of the
+conspirators, one of the men was killed, one shot himself, and two
+escaped; the other four were executed. Of the women, Sophia was
+executed. She knew too much, and those who had betrayed to her the
+secrets of the court, fearing that she might implicate them, privately
+urged the new czar to sign her death-warrant. She held her peace, and
+died without a word.
+
+
+
+
+_THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA._
+
+
+The Emperor of Russia, lord of his people, absolute autocrat over some
+one hundred and twenty-five millions of the human race, to-day stands
+master not only of half the soil of Europe but of more than a third of
+the far greater continent of Asia. To gain some definite idea of the
+total extent of this vast empire it may suffice to say that it is
+considerably more than double the size of Europe, and nearly as large as
+the whole of North America. The tales already given will serve to show
+how the European empire of Russia gradually spread outward from its
+early home in the city and state of Novgorod until it covered half the
+continent. How Russia made its way into Asia has been described in part
+in the story of the conquest of Siberia. The remainder needs to be told.
+
+[Illustration: DOWAGER CZARINA OF RUSSIA.]
+
+It is now more than three hundred years since the Cossack robber Yermak
+invaded Siberia, and more than two centuries since that vast section of
+Northern Asia was added to the Russian empire. The great river Amur,
+flowing far through Eastern Siberia to the Pacific, was discovered in
+1643 by a party of Cossack hunters, who launched their boats on this
+magnificent stream and sailed down it to the sea. It was Chinese soil
+through which it ran, its waters flowing through the province of
+Manchuria, the native land of the emperors of China.
+
+But to this the Russian pioneers paid little heed. They invaded Chinese
+soil, built forts on the Amur, and for forty years war went on. In the
+end they were driven out, and China came to her own again.
+
+Thus matters stood until the year 1854. Six years before, an officer
+with four Cossacks had been sent down the river to spy out the land.
+They never returned, and not a word could be had from China as to their
+fate. In the year named the Russians explored the river in force. China
+protested, but did not act, and the whole vast territory north of the
+stream was proclaimed as Russian soil. Forts were built to make good the
+claim, and China helplessly yielded to the gigantic steal. Since then
+Russia has laid hands on an extensive slice of Chinese territory which
+lies on the Pacific coast far to the south of the Amur, and has forcibly
+taken possession of the Japanese island of Saghalien. Her avaricious
+eyes are fixed on the kingdom of Corea, and the whole of Manchuria may
+yet become Russian soil.
+
+Siberia is by no means the inhospitable land of ice which the name
+suggests to our minds. That designation applies well to its northern
+half, but not to the Siberia of the south. Here are vast fertile plains,
+prolific in grain, which need only the coming railroad facilities to
+make this region the granary of the Russian empire. The great rivers and
+the numerous lakes of the country abound in valuable fish; large forests
+of useful timber are everywhere found; fur-bearing animals yield a rich
+harvest in the icy regions of the north; the mineral wealth is immense,
+including iron, gold, silver, platinum, copper, and lead; precious
+stones are widely found, among them the diamond, emerald, topaz, and
+amethyst; and of ornamental stones may be named malachite, jasper, and
+porphyry, from which magnificent vases, tables, and other articles of
+ornament are made. The region on the Amur and its tributaries is
+particularly valuable and rich, and a great population is destined in
+the future to find an abiding-place in this vast domain.
+
+South of Siberia lies another immense extent of territory, stretching
+across the continent, and comprising the great upland plain known as the
+steppes. On this broad expanse rain rarely falls, and its surface is
+half a desert, unfit for agriculture, but yielding pasturage to vast
+herds of cattle, horses, and sheep, the property of wandering tribes.
+Here is the great home of the nomad, and from these broad plains
+conquering hordes have poured again and again over the civilized world.
+From here came the Huns, who devastated Europe in Roman days; the Turks,
+who later overthrew the Eastern Empire; and the Mongols, who, led by
+Genghis and Tamerlane, committed frightful ravages in Asia and for
+centuries lorded it over Russia.
+
+To-day the greater part of this vast territory belongs to China. But
+westward from Chinese Mongolia extends a broad region of the steppes,
+bordering upon Europe on the west, and traversed by numerous wandering
+tribes known by the name of the Kirghis hordes. For many years Russia,
+the great annexer, has been quietly extending her power over the domain
+of the hordes, until her rule has become supreme in the land of the
+Kirghis, which in all maps of Europe is now given as part of Siberia.
+
+One by one military posts have been established in this semi-desert
+realm, the wandering tribes being at first cajoled and in the end
+defied. The glove of silk has been at first extended to the tribes, but
+within it the hand of iron has always held fast its grasp. The
+simple-minded chiefs have easily been brought over to the Russian
+schemes. Some of them have been won by money and soft words; others by
+some mark of distinction, such as a medal, a handsome sabre, a cocked
+hat or a gold-laced coat. Rather than give these up some of them would
+have sold half the steppes. They have signed papers of which they did
+not understand a word, and given away rights of whose value they were
+utterly ignorant.
+
+Thus insidiously has the power of the emperor made its way into the
+steppes, fort after fort being built, those in the rear being abandoned
+as the country became subdued and new forts arose in the south. Cities
+have risen around some of these forts, of which may be mentioned Kopal
+and Vernoje, which to-day have thousands of inhabitants.
+
+"Russia is thus surrounding the Kirgheez hordes with civilization," says
+the traveller Atkinson, "which will ultimately bring about a moral
+revolution in this country. Agriculture and other branches of industry
+will be introduced by the Russian peasant, than whom no man can better
+adapt himself to circumstances."
+
+Michie, another traveller, gives in brief the general method of the
+Russian advance. It will be seen to be similar to that by which the
+Indian lands of the western United States were gained. "The Cossacks at
+Russian stations make raids on their own account on the Kirgheez, and
+subject them to rough treatment. An outbreak occurs which it requires a
+military force to subdue. An expedition for this purpose is sent every
+year to the Kirgheez steppes. The Russian outposts are pushed farther
+and farther south, more disturbances occur, and so the front is year by
+year extended, on pretence of keeping peace. This has been the system
+pursued by the Russian government in all its aggressions in Asia."
+
+But this does not tell the whole story of the Russian advance in Asia.
+South of the Kirghis steppes lies another great and important territory,
+known as Central Asia, or Turkestan. Much of this region is absolute
+desert, wide expanses of sand, waterless and lifeless, on which to halt
+is to court death. Only swift-moving troops of horsemen, or caravans
+carrying their own supplies, dare venture upon these arid plains. But
+within this realm of sand lie a number of oases whose soil is well
+watered and of the highest fertility. Two mighty rivers traverse these
+lands, the Amu-Daria--once known as the Oxus--and the
+Syr-Daria--formerly the Jaxartes,--both of which flow into the Sea of
+Aral. It is to the waters of these streams that the fertility of _the_
+oases is due, they being diverted from their course to irrigate the
+land.
+
+Three of the oases are of large size. Of these Khiva has the Caspian
+Sea as its western boundary, Bokhara lies more to the east, while
+northeast of the latter extends Khokand. The deserts surrounding these
+oases have long been the lurking-places of the Turkoman nomads, a race
+of wild and warlike horsemen, to whom plunder is as the breath of life,
+and who for centuries kept Persia in alarm, carrying off hosts of
+captives to be sold as slaves.
+
+The religion of Arabia long since made its way into this land, whose
+people are fanatical Mohammedans. Its leading cities, Khiva, Bokhara,
+and Samarcand, have for many centuries been centres of bigotry. For ages
+Turkestan remained a land of mystery. No European was sure for a moment
+of life if he ventured to cross its borders. Vambery, the traveller,
+penetrated it disguised as a dervish, after years of study of the
+language and habits of the Mohammedans, yet he barely escaped with life.
+It is pleasant to be able to say that this state of affairs has ceased.
+Russia has curbed the violence of the fanatics and the nomads, and the
+once silent and mysterious land is now traversed by the iron horse.
+
+The first step of Russian invasion in this quarter was made in 1602. In
+that year a Russian force captured the city of Khiva, but was not able
+to hold its prize. In 1703, during the reign of Peter the Great, the
+Khan of Khiva placed his dominions under Russian rule, and during the
+century Khiva continued friendly, but after the opening of the
+nineteenth century it became bitterly hostile.
+
+Meanwhile Russia was making its way towards the Caspian and Aral seas.
+In 1835 a fort was built on the eastern shore of the Caspian and
+several armed steamers were placed on its waters. Four years later war
+broke out with Khiva, and the khan was forced to give up some Russian
+prisoners he had seized. In 1847 a fort was built on the Sea of Aral, at
+the mouth of the Syr-Daria, whose waters formed the only safe avenue to
+the desert-girdled khanate of Khokand. Steamers were brought in sections
+from Sweden, being carried with great labor across the desert to the
+inland sea, on whose banks they were put together and launched. Armed
+with cannon, they quickly made their appearance on the navigable waters
+of the Syr.
+
+The Amu-Daria is not navigable, so that the Syr at that time formed the
+only ready channel of approach to Khokand, and from this to the other
+khanates, none of which could be otherwise reached without a long and
+dangerous desert march. Russia thus, by planting herself at the mouth of
+the Syr, had gained the most available position from which to begin a
+career of conquest in Central Asia.
+
+War necessarily followed these steps of invasion. In 1853 the Russians
+besieged and captured the fort of Ak Mechet, on the Syr, thought by its
+holders to be impregnable. Up the river, bordered on each side by a
+narrow band of vegetation from which a desert spread away, the Russians
+gradually advanced, finally planting a military post within thirty-two
+miles of Tashkend, the military key of Central Asia.
+
+Such was the state of affairs in 1862, when war arose between the
+khanates themselves, and the Emir of Bokhara invaded and conquered
+Khokand. Russia looked on, awaiting its opportunity. It came at length
+in an appeal from the merchants of Tashkend for protection. The
+protection came in true Russian style, a Cossack force marching into and
+occupying the town, which has since then remained in Russian hands. The
+movement of invasion went on until a large portion of Khokand was
+seized.
+
+This audacious procedure of the Muscovites, as the Emir of Bokhara
+regarded it, roused that ruler to a high pitch of fury and fanaticism.
+He imprisoned Colonel Struve, an eminent Russian astronomer who was on a
+mission to his capital, and declared a holy war against the invading
+infidels.
+
+The emir had little fear of his foes, having what he considered two
+impassable lines of defence. Of these the first was the desert, which
+enclosed his land as within a wall of sand. The second, and in his view
+the more impregnable, was the large number of saints that lay buried in
+Bokharan soil, before whose graves the infidel host would surely be
+stayed.
+
+He probably soon lost faith in the saints, for the Russians quickly
+drove his troops out of Khokand and then invaded Bokhara itself,
+defeating his troops near the venerable and famous city of Samarcand, of
+which they immediately afterwards took possession. These infidel
+assaults soon brought the holy war to an end, the emir being forced to
+cede Samarcand and three other places to Russia, the four being so
+chosen as to give the invaders full military control of the country.
+
+This disaster, which fell upon Bokhara in 1868, was repeated in Khiva in
+1873. Bokharan troops aided the Russians, and Bokhara was rewarded with
+a generous slice of the conquered territory. Khiva was overthrown as
+quickly as the other oases had been, and the whole of Central Asia
+became Russian soil. It is true that a shadow of the old government is
+maintained, the khans of Bokhara and Khiva still occupying their
+thrones. But they are mere puppets to move as the Czar of Russia pulls
+the strings. As for Khokand, it has disappeared from the map of Asia,
+being replaced by the Russian province of Ferghana.
+
+We have thus in few words told a long and vital story, that of the steps
+by which Russia gained its strong foothold in Asia, and extended its
+boundaries from the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean
+and the boundaries of China, Persia, and India, all of which may yet
+become part of the vast Russian empire, if what some consider the secret
+purpose of Russia be carried out.
+
+Asia has been won by the sword; it is being held by other influences.
+Schools have been founded among the Kirghis, and a newspaper is printed
+in their language. Their plundering habits have been suppressed,
+agriculture is encouraged, and luxuries are being introduced into the
+steppes, with the result of changing the ideas and habits of the nomads.
+Thriving Cossack colonies have grown up on the plains, and the wandering
+barbarians behold with wonder the ways and means of civilization in
+their midst.
+
+The same may be said of Turkestan, in which violence has been suppressed
+and industry encouraged, while the Russian population, alike of the
+steppes and of the oases, is rapidly increasing. A railroad penetrates
+the formerly mysterious land, trains roll daily over its soil, carrying
+great numbers of Asiatic passengers, and an undreamed-of activity of
+commerce has taken the place of the old-time plundering raids of the
+half-savage Turkoman horsemen.
+
+The Russian is thoroughly adapted to deal with the Asiatic. Half an
+Asiatic himself, in spite of his fair complexion, he knows how to baffle
+the arts and overcome the prejudices of his new subjects. The Russian
+diplomatist has all the softness and suavity of his Asiatic congeners.
+He conforms to their customs and allows them to delay and prevaricate to
+their hearts' content. He is an adept in the art of bribery, has
+emissaries everywhere, and is much too deeply imbued with this Asiatic
+spirit for the bluntness of European methods. "You must beat about the
+bush with a Russian," we are told. "You must flatter them and humbug
+them. You must talk about everything but _the_ thing. If you want to buy
+a horse you must pretend you want to sell a cow, and so work gradually
+round to the point in view."
+
+Thus the shrewd Russian has gained point after point from his Oriental
+neighbors, and has succeeded in annexing a vast territory while keeping
+on the friendliest of terms with his new subjects. He has respected
+their prejudices, left their religions untouched, dealt with them in
+their own ways, and is rapidly planting the Muscovite type of
+civilization where Asiatic barbarism had for untold ages prevailed.
+
+No man can predict the final result of these movements. Asia has been in
+all ages the field of great invasions and of the sudden building up of
+immense empires. But the movements of the Muscovite conquerors have none
+of the torrent rush of those great invasions of the past. The Russian
+advances with extreme caution, takes no risks, and makes sure of his
+game before he shows his hand. He prepares the ground in front before
+taking a step forward, and all that he leaves in his rear falls into the
+strong folds of the imperial net. Gold and diplomacy are his weapons
+equally with the sword, and in the progress of his arms we seem to see
+Europe marching into Asia with a solid and unyielding front.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RAILROAD IN TURKESTAN._
+
+
+On the 24th of January, 1881, Edward O'Donovan, a daring traveller who
+had journeyed far through the wastes and wilds of Turkestan, found
+himself on a mountain summit not far removed from the northern boundary
+of Persia, from which his startled eyes beheld a spectacle of fearful
+import. Below him the desert stretched in a broad level far away to the
+distant horizon. Near the foot of the range rose a great fortress,
+within which at that moment a frightful struggle was taking place.
+Bringing his field-glass to bear upon the scene, the traveller saw a
+host of terror-stricken fugitives streaming across the plain, and hot
+upon their steps a throng of merciless pursuers, who slaughtered them in
+multitudes as they fled. Even from where he stood the white face of the
+desert seemed changing to a crimson hue.
+
+What the astounded traveller beheld was the death-struggle of the desert
+Turkomans, the hand of retribution smiting those savage brigands who for
+centuries had carried death and misery wherever they rode. These were
+the Tekke Turkomans, the tribes who haunted the Persian frontier, and
+whose annual raids swept hundreds of captives from that peaceful land to
+spend the remainder of their days in the most woful form of slavery. For
+a month previous General Skobeleff, the most daring and merciless of
+the Russian leaders, had besieged them in their great fort of Geop Tepe,
+an earthwork nearly three miles in circuit, and containing within its
+ample walls a desert nation, more than forty thousand in all, men,
+women, and children.
+
+On that day, fatal to the Turkoman power, Skobeleff had taken the fort
+by storm, dealing death wherever he moved, until not a man was left
+alive within its walls except some hundreds of fettered Persian slaves.
+Through its gateways a trembling multitude had fled, and upon these
+miserable fugitives the Russian had let loose his soldiers, horse, foot,
+and artillery, with the savage order to hunt them to the death and give
+no quarter.
+
+Only too well was the brutal order obeyed. Not men alone, but women and
+children as well, fell victims to the sword, and only when night put an
+end to the pursuit did that terrible massacre cease. By that time eight
+thousand persons, of both sexes and all ages, lay stretched in death
+upon the plain. Within the fort thousands more had fallen, the women and
+children here being spared. Skobeleff's report said that twenty thousand
+in all had been slain.
+
+Such was the frightful scene which lay before O'Donovan's eyes when he
+reached the mountain top, on his way to the Russian camp, a spectacle of
+horrible carnage which only a man of the most savage instincts could
+have ordered. "Bloody Eyes" the Turkomans named Skobeleff, and the title
+fairly indicated his ruthless lust for blood. It was his theory of war
+to strike hard when he struck at all, and to make each battle a lesson
+that would not soon be forgotten. The Turkoman nomads have been taught
+their lesson well. They have given no trouble since that day of
+slaughter and revenge.
+
+Such was one of the weapons with which the Russians conquered the
+desert,--the sword. It was succeeded by another,--the iron rail. It is
+now some twenty years since the idea of a railroad from the Caspian Sea
+eastward was first advanced. In 1880 a narrow-gauge road was begun to
+aid Skobeleff, but that daring and impetuous chief had made his march
+and finished his work before the rails had crept far on their way. Soon
+it was determined to change the narrow-gauge for a broad-gauge road, and
+General Annenkoff, a skilful engineer, was placed in charge in 1885,
+with orders to push it forward with all speed.
+
+It was a new and bold project which the Russians had in view. Never
+before had a railroad been built across so bleak a plain, a treeless and
+waterless expanse, stretching for hundreds of miles in a dead level,
+over which the winds drove at will the shifting sands, constantly
+threatening to bury any work which man ventured to lay upon the desert's
+broad breast. West of Bokhara and south of Khiva stretched the great
+desert of Kara-Kum, touching the Caspian Sea on the west, the Amu-Daria
+River on the east, the home of the wandering Turkomans, the born foes of
+the settled races, but from whom all thought of disputing the Russian
+rule had for the time been driven by Skobeleff's death-dealing blade.
+
+The total length of the road thus ordered to be built--extending from
+the shores of the Caspian Sea, the outpost of European Russia, to the
+far-away city of Samarcand, the ancient capital of Timur the Tartar, and
+the very stronghold of Asiatic barbarism--was little short of a thousand
+miles, of which several hundred were bleak and barren desert. Two
+immense steppes, waterless, and scorching hot in summer, lay on the
+route, while it traversed the oases of Kizil-Arvat, Merv, Charjui, and
+Bokhara. In the northern section of the last lay the famous city of
+Samarcand, the eastern terminus of the road. The western terminus was at
+Usun-ada, on the Caspian, and opposite the petroleum region of Baku,
+perhaps the richest oil-yielding district in the world.
+
+General Annenkoff had special difficulties to overcome in the building
+of this road, of a kind never met with by railroad engineers before.
+Chief among these were the lack of water and the instability of the
+roadway, the wind at times manifesting an awkward disposition to blow
+out the foundation from under the ties, at other times to bury the whole
+road under acres of flying sand.
+
+These difficulties were got rid of in various ways. Fresh water, made by
+boiling the salt water of the Caspian and condensing the steam, was
+carried in vats or tuns over the road to the working parties. At a later
+date water was conveyed in pipes from the mountains to fill cisterns at
+the stations, whence it was carried in canals or underground conduits
+along the line, every well and spring on the route being utilized.
+
+To overcome the shifting of the sand, near the Caspian it was
+thoroughly soaked with salt water, and at other places was covered with
+a layer of clay. But there are long distances where no such means could
+be employed, at least two hundred miles of utter wilderness, where the
+surface resembles a billowy sea, the sand being raised in loose hillocks
+and swept from the troughs between, flying in such clouds before every
+wind that an incessant battle with nature is necessary to keep the road
+from burial. To prevent this, tamarisk, wild oats, and desert shrubs are
+planted along the line, and in particular that strange plant of the
+wilderness, the _saxaoul_, whose branches are scraggly and scant, but
+whose sturdy roots sink deep into the sand, seeking moisture in the
+depths. Fascines of the branches of this plant were laid along the track
+and covered with sand, and in places palisades were built, of which only
+the tops are now visible.
+
+Yet despite all these efforts the sands creep insidiously on, and in
+certain localities workmen have to be kept employed, shovelling it back
+as it comes, and fighting without cessation against the forces of the
+desert and the winds. In the building of the road, and in this battling
+with the sands, Turkomans have been largely employed, having given up
+brigandage for honest labor, in which they have proved the most
+efficient of the various workmen engaged upon the road.
+
+Aside from the peculiar difficulties above outlined, the Transcaspian
+Railway was remarkably favored by nature. For nearly the whole distance
+the country is as flat as a billiard-table, and the road so straight
+that at times it runs for twenty or thirty miles without the shadow of a
+curve. In the entire distance there is not a tunnel, and only some small
+cuttings have been made through hills of sand. Of bridges, other than
+mere culverts, there are but three in the whole length of the road, the
+only large one being that over the Amu-Daria. This is a hastily built,
+rickety affair of timber, put up only as a make-shift, and at the mercy
+of the stream if a serious rise should take place.
+
+The whole road, indeed, was hastily made, with a single track, the rails
+simply spiked down, and the work done at the rate of from a mile to a
+mile and a half a day. Before the Bokharans fairly realized what was
+afoot, the iron horse was careering over their level plains, and the
+shrill scream of the locomotive whistle was startling the saints in
+their graves.
+
+Over such a road no great speed can be attained. Thirty miles an hour is
+the maximum, and from ten to twenty miles the average speed, while the
+stops at stations are exasperatingly long to travellers from the
+impatient West. To the Asiatics they are of no concern, time being with
+them not worth a moment's thought.
+
+In the operation of this road petroleum waste is used as fuel, the
+refining works at Baku yielding an inexhaustible supply. The carriages
+are of mixed classes, some being two stories in height, each story of
+different class. There are very few first-class carriages on the road.
+As for the stations, some of them are miles from the road, that of
+Bokhara being ten miles away. This method was adopted to avoid exciting
+the prejudices of the Asiatics, who at first were not in favor of the
+road, regarding it as a device of Shaitan, the spirit of evil. Yet the
+"fire-cart," as they call it, is proving very convenient, and they have
+no objection to let this fiery Satan haul their grain and cotton to
+market and carry themselves across the waterless plains. The camel is
+being thrown out of business by this shrill-voiced prince of evil. The
+road is being extended over the oases, and will in the end bring all
+Turkestan under its control.
+
+It almost takes away one's breath to think of railway stations and
+time-tables in connection with the old-time abiding-place of the
+terrible Tartar, and of the iron horse careering across the empire of
+barbarism, rushing into the metropolis of superstition, and waking with
+the scream of the steam whistle the silent centuries of the Orient.
+Nothing of greater promise than this planting of the railroad in Central
+Asia has been performed of recent years. The son of the desert is to be
+civilized despite himself, and to be taught the arts and ideas of the
+West by the irresistible logic of steel and steam.
+
+But this enterprise is a minor one compared with that which Russia has
+recently completed, that of a railway extending across the whole width
+of Siberia, being, with its branches, more than five thousand miles
+long--much the longest railway in the world. Work on this was begun in
+1890, and it is now completed to Vladivostok, the chief Russian port on
+the Pacific, a traveller being able to ride from St. Petersburg to the
+shores of the Pacific Ocean without change of cars. A branch of this
+road runs southward through Manchuria to Port Arthur, but as a result of
+the war with Japan this has been transferred to China, Manchuria being
+wrested from the controlling grasp of Russia. It is a single-track road,
+but it is proposed to double-track it throughout its entire length, thus
+greatly increasing its availability as a channel of transport alike in
+war and peace.
+
+All this is of the deepest significance. The railroad in Asia has come
+to stay; and with its coming the barbarism of the past is nearing its
+end. The sleeping giant of Orientalism is stirring uneasily in its bed,
+its drowsy senses stirred by the shrill alarum of the locomotive
+whistle. New ideas and new habits must follow in the track of the iron
+horse. The West is forcing itself into the East, with all its restless
+activity. In the time to come this whole broad continent is destined to
+be covered with railroads as with a vast spider-web; new industries will
+be established, machinery introduced, and the great region of the
+steppes, famous in the past only as the starting-point of conquering
+migrations, must in the end become an active centre of industry, the
+home of peace and prosperity, a new-found abiding-place of civilization
+and human progress.
+
+
+
+
+_AN ESCAPE FROM THE MINES OF SIBERIA._
+
+
+The name Siberia calls up to our minds the vision of a stupendous
+prison, a vast open penitentiary larger than the whole United States, a
+continental place of captivity which for three centuries past has been
+the seat of more wretchedness and misery than any other land inhabited
+by the human race. To that far, frozen land a stream of the best and
+worst of the people of Russia has steadily flowed, including prisoners
+of state, religious dissenters, rebels, Polish patriots, convicts,
+vagabonds, and all others who in any way gave offence to the authorities
+or stood in the way of persons in power.
+
+Not freedom of action alone, but even freedom of thought, is a crime in
+Russia. It is a land of innumerable spies, of secret arrest and rapid
+condemnation, in which the captive may find himself on the road to
+Siberia without knowing with what crime he is charged, while his
+friends, even his wife and family, may remain in ignorance of his fate.
+Every year a convoy of some twenty thousand wretched prisoners is sent
+off to that dismal land, including the ignorant and the educated, the
+debased and the refined, men and women, young and old, the horror of
+exile being added to indescribably by this mingling of delicate and
+refined men and women with the rudest and most brutal of the convict
+class, all under the charge of mounted Cossacks, well armed, and bearing
+long whips as their most effective arguments of control.
+
+It may be said here that the misery of this long journey on foot has
+been somewhat mitigated since the introduction of railroads and
+steamboats, and will very likely be done away with when the
+Trans-siberian Railway is finished; but for centuries the horrors of the
+convict train have piteously appealed to the charity of the world, while
+the sufferings and brutalities which the exiles have had to endure stand
+almost without parallel in the story of convict life.
+
+The exiles are divided into two classes, those who lose all and those
+who lose part of their rights. Of a convict of the former class neither
+the word nor the bond has any value: his wife is released from all duty
+to him, he cannot possess any property or hold any office. In prison he
+wears convict clothes, has his head half shaved, and may be cruelly
+flogged at the will of the officials, or murdered almost with impunity.
+Those deprived of partial rights are usually sent to Western Siberia;
+those deprived of total rights are sent to Eastern Siberia, where their
+life, as workers in the mines, is so miserable and monotonous that death
+is far more of a relief than something to be feared.
+
+[Illustration: GROUP OF SIBERIANS.]
+
+Many of the exiles escape,--some from the districts where they live
+free, with privilege of getting a living in any manner available, others
+from the prisons or mines. The mere feat of running away is in many
+cases not difficult, but to get out of the country is a very different
+matter. The officers do not make any serious efforts to prevent escapes,
+and can be easily bribed to allow them, since they are enabled then to
+turn in the name of the prisoner as still on hand and charge the
+government for his support. In the gold-mines the convicts work in
+gangs, and here one will lie in a ditch and be covered with rubbish by
+his comrades. When his absence is discovered he is not to be found, and
+at nightfall he slips from the trench and makes for the forest.
+
+To spend the summer in the woods is the joy of many convicts. They have
+no hope of getting out of the country, which is of such vast extent that
+winter is sure to descend upon them before they can approach the border,
+but the freedom of life in the woods has for them an undefinable charm.
+Then as the frigid season approaches they permit themselves to be
+caught, and go back to their labor or confinement with hearts lightened
+by the enjoyment of their vagrant summer wanderings. There is in some
+cases another advantage to be gained. A twenty years' convict who has
+escaped and lets himself be caught again may give a false name, and
+avoid all incriminating answers through a convenient failure of memory.
+If not detected, he may in this way get off with a five years' sentence
+as a vagrant. But if detected his last lot is worse than his first,
+since the time he has already served goes for nothing.
+
+There is another peril to which escaping prisoners are exposed. The
+native tribes are apt to look upon them as game and shoot them down at
+sight. It is said that they receive three roubles for each convict they
+bring to the police, dead or alive. "If you shoot a squirrel," they say,
+"you get only his skin; but if you shoot a _varnak_ [convict] you get
+his skin and his clothing too."
+
+Atkinson, the Siberian traveller, tells a remarkable story of an escape
+of prisoners, which may be given in illustration of the above remarks.
+One night in September, 1850, the people of Barnaoul, a town in Western
+Siberia, were roused from their slumbers by the clatter of a party of
+mounted Cossacks galloping up the quiet street. The story they brought
+was an alarming one. Siberia had been invaded by three thousand Tartars
+of the desert, who were marching towards the town. Nearly all the gold
+from the Siberian gold-mines lay in Barnaoul, waiting to be smelted into
+bars and sent to St. Petersburg. There was much silver also, with
+abundance of other valuable government stores. All this would form a
+rich booty for an army of nomad plunderers, could they obtain it, and
+the news filled the town with excitement and alarm.
+
+As the night passed and the day came on, other Cossacks arrived with
+still more alarming news. The three thousand had grown to seven
+thousand, many of them armed with rifles, who were burning the Kalmuck
+villages as they advanced, and murdering every man, woman, and child who
+fell into their hands. Some thought that the wild hordes of Asia were
+breaking loose again, as in the time of Genghis Khan, and the terror of
+many of the people grew intense.
+
+By noon the enemy had increased to ten thousand, and the people
+everywhere were flying before their advance. Hasty steps were taken for
+defence and for the safety of the gold and silver, while orders were
+despatched in all directions to gather a force to meet them on their
+way. But as the days passed on the alarm began to subside. The number of
+the invaders declined almost as rapidly as it had grown. They were not
+advancing upon the town. No army was needed to oppose them, and Cossacks
+were sent to stop the march of the troops. In the course of two days
+more the truth was sifted from the mass of wild rumors and reports. The
+ten thousand invaders dwindled to forty Circassian prisoners who had
+escaped from the gold-mines on the Birioussa.
+
+These fugitives had not a thought of invading the Russian dominions.
+They were prisoners of war who, with heartless cruelty, had been
+condemned to the mines of Siberia for the crime of a patriotic effort to
+save their country, and their sole purpose was to return to their
+far-distant homes.
+
+By the aid of small quantities of gold, which they had managed to hide
+from their guards, they succeeded in purchasing a sufficient supply of
+rifles and ammunition from the neighboring tribesmen, which they hid in
+a mountain cavern about seven miles away. There was no fear of the
+Tartars betraying them, as they had received for the arms ten times
+their value, and would have been severely punished if found with gold in
+their possession.
+
+On a Saturday afternoon near the end of July, 1850, after completing the
+day's labors, the Circassians left the mine in small parties, going in
+different directions. This excited no suspicion, as they were free to
+hunt or otherwise amuse themselves after their work. They gradually came
+together in a mountain ravine about six miles south of the mines. Not
+far from this locality a stud of spare horses were kept at pasture, and
+hither some of the fugitives made their way, reaching the spot just as
+the animals were being driven into the enclosure for the night. The
+three horse-keepers suddenly found themselves covered with rifles and
+forced to yield themselves prisoners, while their captors began to
+select the best horses from the herd.
+
+The Circassians deemed it necessary to take the herdsmen with them to
+prevent them from giving the alarm. Two of these also were skilful
+hunters and well acquainted with the surrounding mountain regions, and
+were likely to prove useful as guides. In all fifty-five horses were
+chosen, out of the three or four hundred in the herd. The remainder were
+turned out of the enclosure and driven into the forest, as if they had
+broken loose and their keepers were absent in search of them. This done,
+the captors sought their friends in the glen, by whom they were received
+with cheers, and before midnight, the moon having risen, the fugitives
+began their long and dangerous journey.
+
+Sunrise found them on a high summit, which commanded a view of the
+gold-mine they had left, marked by the curling smoke which rose from
+fires kept constantly alive to drive away the mosquitoes, the pests of
+the region. Taking a last look at their place of exile, they moved on
+into a grassy valley, where they breakfasted and fed their horses. On
+they went, keeping a sharp watch upon their guides, day by day, until
+the evening of the fourth day found them past the crest of the range and
+descending into a narrow valley, where they decided to spend the night.
+
+Thus far all had gone well. They were now beyond the Russian frontier
+and in Chinese territory, and as their guides knew the country no
+farther, they were set free and their rifles restored to them. Venison
+had been obtained plentifully on the march, and fugitives and captives
+alike passed the evening in feasting and enjoyment. With daybreak the
+Siberians left to return to the mine and the Circassians resumed their
+route.
+
+From this time onward difficulties confronted them. They were in a
+region of mountains, precipices, ravines, and torrents. One dangerous
+river they swam, but, instead of keeping on due south, the difficulties
+of the way induced them to change their course to the west, alarmed,
+probably, by the vast snowy peaks of the Tangnou Mountains in the
+distance, though if they had passed these all danger from Siberia would
+have been at an end. As it was, after more than three weeks of
+wandering, the nature of the country forced them towards the northwest,
+until they came upon the eastern shore of the Altin-Kool Lake.
+
+Here was their final chance. Had they followed the lake southerly they
+might still have reached a place of safety. But ill fortune brought them
+upon it at a point where it seemed easiest to round it on the north,
+and they passed on, hoping soon to reach its western shores. But the
+Bea, the impassable torrent that flows from the lake, forced them again
+many miles northward in search of a ford, and into a locality from which
+their chance of escape was greatly reduced.
+
+More than two months had passed since they left the mines, and the poor
+wanderers were still in the vast Siberian prison, from which, if they
+had known the country, they might now have been far away. The region
+they had reached was thinly inhabited by Kalmuck Tartars, and they
+finally entered a village of this people, with whose inhabitants they
+unluckily got into a broil, ending in a battle, in which several
+Kalmucks were killed and the village burned.
+
+To this event was due the terrifying news that reached Barnaoul, the
+alarm being carried to a Cossack fort whose commandant was drunk at the
+time and sent out a series of exaggerated reports. As for the fugitives,
+they had in effect signed their death-warrant by their conflict with the
+Kalmucks. The news spread from tribe to tribe, and when the real number
+of the fugitives was learned the tribesmen entered savagely into
+pursuit, determined to obtain revenge for their slain kinsmen. The
+Circassians were wandering in an unknown country. The Kalmucks knew
+every inch of the ground. Scouts followed the fugitives, and after them
+came well-mounted hunters, who rapidly closed upon the trail, being on
+the evening of the third day but three miles away.
+
+The Circassians had crossed the Bea and turned to the south, but here
+they found themselves in an almost impassable group of snow-clad
+mountains. On they pushed, deeper and deeper into the chain, still
+closely pursued, the Kalmucks so managing the pursuit as to drive them
+into a pathless region of the hills. This accomplished, they came on
+leisurely, knowing that they had their prey safe.
+
+At length the hungry and weary warriors were driven into a mountain
+pass, where the pursuers, who had hitherto saved their bullets, began a
+savage attack, rifle-balls dropping fast into the glen. The fugitives
+sought shelter behind some fallen rocks, and returned the fire with
+effect. But they were at a serious disadvantage, the hunters, who far
+outnumbered them, and knew every crag in the ravines, picking them off
+in safety from behind places of shelter. From point to point the
+Circassians fell back, defending their successive stations desperately,
+answering every call to surrender with shouts of defiance, and holding
+each spot until the fall of their comrades warned them that the place
+was no longer tenable.
+
+Night fell during the struggle, and under its cover the remaining
+fifteen of the brave fugitives made their way on foot deeper into the
+mountains, abandoning their horses to the merciless foe. At daybreak
+they resumed their march, scaling the rocky heights in front. Here,
+scanning the country in search of their pursuers, not one of whom was to
+be seen, they turned to the west, a range of snow-clad peaks closing the
+way in front. A forest of cedars before them seemed to present their
+only chance of escape, and they hurried towards it, but when within two
+hundred yards of the wood a puff of white smoke rose from a thicket, and
+one of the fugitives fell. The hunters had ambushed them on this spot,
+and as they rushed for the shelter of some rocks near by five more fell
+before the bullets of their foes.
+
+The fire was returned with some effect, and then a last desperate rush
+was made for the forest shelter. Only four of the poor fellows reached
+it, and of these some were wounded. The thick underwood now screened
+them from the volley that whistled after them, and they were soon safe
+from the effects of rifle-shots in the tangled forest depths.
+
+Meanwhile the clouds had been gathering black and dense, and soon rain
+and sleet began to fall, accompanied by a fierce gale. Two small parties
+of Kalmucks were sent in pursuit, while the others began to prepare an
+encampment under the cedars. The storm rapidly grew into a hurricane,
+snow falling thick and whirling into eddies, while the pursuers were
+soon forced to return without having seen the small remnant of the
+gallant band. For three days the storm continued, and then was followed
+by a sharp frost. The winter had set in.
+
+No further pursuit was attempted. It was not needed. Nothing more was
+ever seen of the four Circassians, nor any trace of them found. They
+undoubtedly found their last resting-place under the snows of that
+mountain storm.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN._
+
+
+On the memorable Saturday of May 27, 1905, in far eastern waters in
+which the guns of war-ships had rarely thundered before, took place an
+event that opened the eyes of the world as if a new planet had swept
+into its ken or a great comet had suddenly blazed out in the eastern
+skies. It was that of one of the most stupendous naval victories in
+history, won by a people who fifty years before had just begun to emerge
+from the dim twilight of mediaeval barbarism.
+
+Japan, the Nemesis of the East, had won her maiden spurs on the field of
+warfare in her brief conflict with China in 1894, but that was looked
+upon as a fight between a young game-cock and a decrepit barn-yard fowl,
+and the Western world looked with a half-pitying indulgence upon the
+spectacle of the long-slumbering Orient serving its apprenticeship in
+modern war. Yet the rapid and complete triumph of the island empire over
+the leviathan of the Asiatic continent was much of a revelation of the
+latent power that dwelt in that newly-aroused archipelago, and when in
+1903 Japan began to speak in tones of menace to a second leviathan, that
+of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, the world's interest was deeply
+stirred again.
+
+Would little Japan dare attack a European power and one so great and
+populous as Russia, with half Asia already in its clasp, with strong
+fortresses and fleets within striking distance, and with a continental
+railway over which it could pour thousands of armed battalions? The idea
+seemed preposterous, many looked upon the attitude of Japan as the
+madness of temerity, and when on February 6, 1904, the echo of the guns
+at Port Arthur was heard the world gave a gasp of astonishment and
+alarm.
+
+Were there any among us then who believed it possible for little Japan
+to triumph over the colossus it had so daringly attacked? If any, they
+were very few. It is doubtful if there was a man in Russia itself who
+dreamed of anything but eventual victory, with probably the adding of
+the islands of Japan to its chaplet of orient pearls. True, the success
+of the attack on their fleet was a painful surprise, and when they saw
+their great iron-clads locked up in Port Arthur harbor it was cause for
+annoyance. But if the fleet had been taken by surprise, the fortress was
+claimed to be impregnable, the army was powerful and accustomed to
+victory over its foes in Asia, and it was with an amused contempt of
+their half-barbarian foes and confidence in rapid and brilliant triumph
+that the Muscovite cohorts streamed across Asia with arms in hand and
+hope in heart.
+
+We do not propose to tell here what followed. The world knows it. Men
+read with an interest they had rarely taken in foreign affairs of the
+rapid and stupendous successes of the little soldiers of Nippon, the
+indomitable valor of the troops, the striking skill of their leaders,
+the breadth and completeness of their tactics, the training and
+discipline of the men, the rare hygienic condition of the camps, their
+impetuosity in attack, their persistence in pursuit; in short, the
+sudden advent of an army with all the requisites of a victorious career,
+as pitted against the ill-handled myriads of Russia, not wanting in
+brute courage, but sadly lacking in efficient leadership and strategical
+skill in their commanders.
+
+Back went the Russian hosts, mile by mile, league by league, steadily
+pressed northward by the unrelenting persistence of the island warriors;
+while on the Liao-tung peninsula the besieging forces crept on foot by
+foot, caring apparently nothing for wounds or death, caring only for the
+possession of the fortress which they had been sent to win.
+
+We should like to record some victories for the Russians, but the annals
+of the war tell us of none. Outgeneralled and driven back from their
+strong position on the Yalu River; decisively beaten in the great battle
+of Liao-yang; checked in their offensive movement on the Shakhe River,
+with immense loss; and finally utterly defeated in the desperate two
+weeks' struggle around Mukden; the field warfare ended in the two great
+armies facing each other at Harbin, with months of manoeuvring before
+them.
+
+Meanwhile the campaign in the peninsula had gone on with like desperate
+efforts and final success of the Japanese, Port Arthur surrendering to
+its irresistible besiegers on the opening day of 1905. With it fell the
+Russian fleet which had been cooped up in its harbor for nearly a year;
+defeated and driven back in its every attempt to escape; its flag-ship,
+the "Petropavlovsk," sunk by a mine on April 13, 1904, carrying down
+Admiral Makaroff and nearly all its crew; the remnant of the fleet being
+finally sunk or otherwise disabled to save them from capture on the
+surrender of Port Arthur to the besieging forces.
+
+Such, in very brief epitome, were the leading features of the conflict
+on land and its earlier events on the sea. We must now return to the
+great naval battle spoken of above, which calls for detailed description
+alike from its being the closing struggle of the contest and from its
+extraordinary character as a phenomenal event in maritime war.
+
+The loss of the naval strength of Russia in eastern waters led to a
+desperate effort to retrieve the disaster, by sending from the Baltic
+every war-ship that could be got ready, with the hope that a strong
+fleet on the open waters of the east would enable Russia to regain its
+prestige as a naval power and deal a deadly blow at its foe, by closing
+the waters upon the possession of which the islanders depended for the
+support of their armies in Manchuria.
+
+This supplementary fleet, under Admiral Rojestvensky, set sail from the
+port of Libau on October 16, 1904, beginning its career inauspiciously
+by firing impulsively on some English fishing-boats on the 21st, with
+the impression that these were Japanese scouts. This hasty act
+threatened to embroil Russia with another foe, the ally of Japan, but it
+passed off with no serious results.
+
+Entering the Mediterranean and passing through the Suez Canal, the fine
+fleet under Rojestvensky, nearly sixty vessels strong, loitered on its
+way with wearisome deliberation, dallying for a protracted interval in
+the waters of the Indian Ocean and not passing Singapore on its journey
+north till April 12. It looked almost as if its commander feared the
+task before him, six months having now passed since it left the Baltic
+on its very deliberate cruise.
+
+The second Russian squadron, under Admiral Nebogatoff, did not pass
+Singapore until May 5, it being the 13th before the two squadrons met
+and combined. On the 22d they were seen in the waters of the Philippines
+heading northward. The news of this, flashed by cable from the far east
+to the far west, put Europe and America on the _qui vive_, in eager
+anticipation of startling events quickly to follow.
+
+Meanwhile where was Admiral Togo and his fleet? For months he had been
+engaged in the work of bottling up the Russian squadron at Port Arthur.
+Since the fall of the latter place and the destruction of the war-ships
+in its harbor he had been lying in wait for the slow-coming Baltic
+fleet, doubtless making every preparation for the desperate struggle
+before him, but doing this in so silent and secret a method that the
+world outside knew next to nothing of what was going on. The astute
+authorities of Japan had no fancy for heralding their work to the world,
+and not a hint of the movements or whereabouts of the fleet reached
+men's ears.
+
+As the days passed on and the Russian ships steamed still northward, the
+anxious curiosity as to the location of the Japanese fleet grew
+painfully intense. The expected intention to waylay Rojestvensky in the
+southern straits had not been realized, and as the Russians left the
+Philippines in their rear, the question, Where is Togo? grew more
+insistent still. With extraordinary skill he had lain long in ambush,
+not a whisper as to the location of his fleet being permitted to make
+its way to the western world; and when Rojestvensky ventured into the
+yawning jaws of the Korean Strait he was in utter ignorance of the
+lurking-place of his grimly waiting foes.
+
+Before Rojestvensky lay two routes to choose between, the more direct
+one to Vladivostok through the narrow Korean Strait, or the longer one
+eastward of the great island of Honshu. Which he would take was in doubt
+and in which Togo awaited him no one knew. The skilled admiral of Japan
+kept his counsel well, doubtless satisfied in his own mind that the
+Russians would follow the more direct route, and quietly but watchfully
+awaiting their approach.
+
+It was on May 22, as we have said, that the Russian fleet appeared off
+the Philippines, the greatest naval force that the mighty Muscovite
+empire had ever sent to sea, the utmost it could muster after its
+terrible losses at Port Arthur. Five days afterwards, on the morning of
+Saturday, May 27, this proud array of men-of-war steamed into the open
+throat of the Straits of Korea, steering for victory and Vladivostok. On
+the morning of Monday, the 29th, a few battered fragments of this grand
+fleet were fleeing for life from their swift pursuers. The remainder
+lay, with their drowned crews, on the sea-bottom, or were being taken
+into the ports of victorious Japan. In those two days had been fought to
+a finish the greatest naval battle of recent times, and Japan had won
+the position of one of the leading naval powers of the world.
+
+On that Saturday morning no dream of such a destiny troubled the souls
+of those in the Russian fleet. They were passing into the throat of the
+channel between Japan and Korea, but as yet no sign of a foeman had
+appeared, and it may be that numbers on board the fleet were
+disappointed, for doubtless the hope of battle and victory filled many
+ardent souls on the Russian ships. The sun rose on the new day and sent
+its level beams across the seas, on which as yet no hostile ship had
+appeared. The billowing waters spread broad and open before them and it
+began to look as if those who hoped for a fight would be disappointed,
+those who desired a clear sea and an open passage would be gratified.
+
+No sails were visible on the waters except those of small craft, which
+scudded hastily for shore on seeing the great array of war-ships on the
+horizon. Fishing-craft most of these, though doubtless among them were
+the scout-boats which the watchful Togo had on patrol with orders to
+signal the approach of the enemy's fleet. But as the day moved on the
+scene changed. A great ship loomed up, steering into the channel, then
+another and another, the vanguard of a battle-fleet, steaming straight
+southward. All doubt vanished. Togo had sprung from his ambush and the
+battle was at hand.
+
+It was a rough sea, and the coming vessels dashed through heavy waves as
+they drove onward to the fray. From the flag-ship of the fleet of Japan
+streamed the admiral's signal, not unlike the famous signal of Nelson at
+Trafalgar, "The defense of our empire depends upon this action. You are
+expected to do your utmost."
+
+Northward drove the Russians, drawn up in double column. The day moved
+on until noon was passed and the hour of two was reached. A few minutes
+later the first shots came from the foremost Russian ships. They fell
+short and the Japanese waited until they came nearer before replying.
+Then the roar of artillery began and from both sides came a hail of shot
+and shell, thundering on opposing hulls or rending the water into foam.
+From two o'clock on Saturday afternoon until two o'clock on Sunday
+morning that iron storm kept on with little intermission, the huge
+twelve-inch guns sending their monstrous shells hurtling through the
+air, the smaller guns raining projectiles on battle-ships and cruisers,
+until it seemed as if nothing that floated could live through that
+terrible storm.
+
+Never in the history of naval warfare had so frightful a cannonade been
+seen. Its effect on the opposing fleets was very different. For months
+Togo had kept his gunners in training and their shell-fire was accurate
+and deadly, hundreds of their projectiles hitting the mark and working
+dire havoc to the Russian ships and crews; while to judge from the
+little damage done, the return fire would seem to have been wild and at
+random. Either the work of training his gunners had been neglected by
+the Russian admiral, or they were demoralized by the projectiles from
+the rapid-fire guns of the Japanese, which swept their decks and mowed
+down the gunners at their posts.
+
+This fierce and telling fire soon had its effect. Ninety minutes after
+it began, the Russian armored cruiser "Admiral Nakhimoff" went reeling
+to the bottom with the greater part of her crew of six hundred men. Next
+to succumb was the repair-ship "Kamchatka." Badly hurt early in the
+battle, her steering-gear was later disabled, then a shell put her
+engines out of service, and shortly after her bow rose in the air and
+her stern sank, and with a tremendous roar she followed the "Nakhimoff"
+to the depths.
+
+Around the "Borodino," one of the largest of the Russian battle-ships,
+clustered five of the Japanese, pouring in their fire so fiercely that
+flames soon rose from her deck and the wounded monster seemed in sore
+distress. This was Rojestvensky's flag-ship, and the enemy made it one
+of their chief targets, sweeping its decks until the great ship became a
+veritable shambles. Admiral Rojestvensky, wounded and his ship slowly
+settling under him, was transferred in haste to a torpedo-boat
+destroyer, and as evening came on the huge ship, still fighting
+desperately, turned turtle and vanished beneath the waves. As for the
+admiral, the destroyer which bore him was taken and he fell a prisoner
+into Japanese hands.
+
+Previous to this three other battle-ships, the "Lessoi," the "Veliky,"
+and the "Oslabya," had met with a similar fate, and shortly after
+sundown the "Navarin" followed its sister ships to the yawning depths.
+The fiery assault had quickly thrown the whole Russian array into
+disorder, while the Japanese skilfully manoeuvred to press the
+Russians from side and rear, forcing them towards the coast, where they
+were attacked by the Japanese column there advancing. In this way the
+fleet was nearly surrounded, the torpedo-boat flotilla being thrown out
+to intercept those vessels that sought to break through the deadly net.
+
+With the coming on of darkness the firing from the great guns ceased,
+the Russian fleet being by this time hopelessly beaten. But the
+torpedo-boats now came actively into action, keeping up their fire
+through most of the night. When Sunday morning dawned the shattered
+remnants of the Russian fleet were in full flight for safety, hotly
+pursued by the Japanese, who were bent on preventing the escape of a
+single ship. The roar of guns began again about nine o'clock and was
+kept up at intervals during the day, new ships being bagged from time to
+time by Togo's victorious fleet, while others, shot through and through,
+followed their brothers of the day before to the ocean depths.
+
+The most notable event of this day's fight was the bringing to bay off
+Liancourt Island of a squadron of five battle-ships, comprising the
+division of Admiral Nebogatoff. Togo, in the battle-ship "Mikasa,"
+commanded the pursuing squadron, which overtook and surrounded the
+Russian ships, pouring in a terrible fire which soon threw them into
+hopeless confusion. Not a shot came back in reply and Togo, seeing their
+helpless plight, signalled a demand for their surrender. In response the
+Japanese flag was run up over the Russian standard, and these five ships
+fell into the hands of the islanders without an effort at defense. The
+confusion and dismay on board was such that an attempt to fight could
+have led only to their being sent to the bottom with their crews.
+
+It was a miserable remnant of the proud Russian fleet that escaped,
+including only the cruiser "Almez" and a few torpedo-boats that came
+limping into the harbor of Vladivostok with the news of the disaster,
+and the cruisers "Oleg," "Aurora," and "Jemchug," under Rear-admiral
+Enquist, that straggled in a damaged condition into Manila harbor a week
+after the great fight. Aside from these the Russian fleet was
+annihilated, its ships destroyed or captured; the total loss, according
+to Admiral Togo's report, being eight battle-ships, three armored
+cruisers, three coast-defense ships, and an unenumerated multitude of
+smaller vessels, while the loss in men was four thousand prisoners and
+probably twice that number slain or drowned.
+
+The most astonishing part of the report was that the total losses of the
+Japanese were three torpedo-boats, no other ships being seriously
+damaged, while the loss in killed and wounded was not over eight hundred
+men. It was a fight that paralleled, in all respects except that of
+dimensions of the battling fleets, the naval fights at Manila and
+Santiago in the Spanish-American war.
+
+What followed this stupendous victory needs not many words to tell. On
+land and sea the Russians had been fought to a finish. To protract the
+war would have been but to add to their disasters. Peace was imperative
+and it came in the following September, the chief result being that the
+Russian career of conquest in Eastern Asia was stayed and Japan became
+the master spirit in that region of the globe.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: See Historical Tales: France.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15), by Charles Morris
+
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